Fates of Ice and Fire
by Dschehuti
Summary: Seven Gods, seven Kingdoms, seven Heroes. The Magi have gathered to participate in the Fourth Fuyuki Grail War. But the heroes summoned are not from Earth. And all of them brought their own history and regrets. May the tragedy of blood and steel begin.
1. Chapter 1 - Arrival

Disclaimer: All rights to ASoIaF belong to GRRM and all to Fate/Zero to Type-Moon. I'm just borrowing the characters to make everything even more miserable for them.

Now, my initial idea is to finish this story before The Winds of Winter releases and I'm fairly hopeful that I will succeed. It might not become as large a tale as the Einzbern Grail War, but I hope that my second tribute to the Fate franchise will entertain regardless. Enjoy!

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 **Fates of Ice and Fire**

Chapter 1 - Arrival

 **Kirei**

The Holy Grail War. Three years ago, Kirei Kotomine hadn't even heard of that ritual. But it surely sounded like something only Magi were able to think up. A ritual to obtain a single omnipotent wish. A ritual which included the summoning of the ghosts of seven heroes from the past, only to let them slaughter each other in a supernatural battle royale. It was madness. But it was also madness for the Grail to choose him as a participant. Kirei Kotomine wasn't part of this society of modern mages, who hid their talents in the dark, silently looking down onto the ordinary humans with their blissful ignorance. He didn't even have a wish for the Grail in the first place. It was a huge mystery to him why the Grail would choose someone who was so devoid of ambitions. But here he was. Standing in a cellar in front of a blood red magic circle, chanting the words to summon his champion in the clash which was about to come. His tactic was well planned. In order to operate on several fronts and to help his mentor Tokiomi Tohsaka win the Grail, he was trying to summon Hassan-i Sabbah, the leader of the original Arab assassins. He even tweaked the ritual in order to get a champion of many faces. Every single leader of the assassins who ever wore the name of Hassan-i Sabbah should get summoned.

"I hereby propose: Thou shalt come under my command, and my fate shall be thy sword", Kirei declared with his deep voice, controlling the flow of mana with his outstretched hand. "Abiding by the summons of the Holy Grail, if thou dost accede to this will and reason, answer me! I hereby swear, I will be all that is good in the eternal world. And that I shall defeat all evil in the world. You seven heavens, clad in the three great words of power: Come forth of the circle of binding!"

A blinding flash illuminated the room and Kirei had to shield himself from a sudden burst of wind emitted from the magic circle in front of him. When he opened his eyes again, a single silhouette stood amidst the thick clouds of smoke. He was successful in summoning a champion, but Kirei immediately doubted he managed to get the right one. This was not an Arab assassin, especially not an 'Old Man from the Mountain'. It was a girl. A girl in a simple black leather outfit, a slender sword hanging at her belt. Her unkempt hair was a mess and Kirei wouldn't have thought her to be all that remarkable if not for the eyes. The way she stared at him, cold and uncaring. He stared back in confusion, unable to make sense of her. That the Grail would call forth the ghost of a child as a possible sacrifice... It thrilled him for some reason and it disgusted Kirei that it did. The picture of his own daughter flashed up in his mind, even if this girl in front of him was far older. He guessed her age at thirteen, maybe fourteen years.

"Who... who are you?", he asked startled.

She cocked her had slightly and the hint of a smile crept up on her face.

"No one", she replied with surprising sincerity.

Kirei frowned.

 _Is she trying to trick me?_

"You are not Hassan-i Sabbah?", it was more a statement than a question, but he was forced to make it clear from the beginning. Their whole tactic depended on it.

"I never heard that name before, sorry", the girl said indifferently. "Does it cause a problem?"

"Maybe. I've never heard of a little girl assassin who claims to not have a name", Kirei mused.

"Isn't this the point of being an assassin?", she answered, smirking slightly.

"I was told the Holy Grail only summons heroes of great renown. So you must have an identity which is widely known", he guessed.

Her smile widened a bit.

"Identities are like masks. You put them on when you need them and get rid of them when you don't. Perhaps there were people who knew the name I once had, but it doesn't matter. The people who should have called me by it either died or forgot my face. So for the time being, you should just refer to me as Assassin."

Kirei sighed. He participated in this conflict to help his mentor, Tokiomi Tohsaka, win the Grail. They had made a plan to fool the other Masters by sacrificing one of the many faces of Hassan. Now everything was in danger. He didn't know what this girl was capable of yet and she seemed not very inclined to just openly tell him.

"Please wait here, I'll have to discuss it with my ally."

"Do what you want... I'm just here to claim my wish and be done with it", the girl replied, still staring at him with those empty grey eyes.

 **Kiritsugu**

The light subsided and the dense smoke slowly drifted away. The man known as the Magus Killer looked in awe at the knight which was brought forth by the silver circle on the ground. Kiritsugu Emiya waited eight years for this moment. And despite him being as close as never before to his lifelong wish for peace, he could not feel happiness. Only dread. Only sorrow on what was about to come. One could have thought that he dedicated those years to his goal, but every time he looked at the woman in white who stood next to him, doubts began to stab at his chest. Because now everything had to end. The day of the summoning had finally come. He had used a catalyst to get the legendary King Arthur, the archetype of the honourable knight, despite his doubts about his ability to work together with him. And his expectations were fully met. The figure in front of him was a tall man in a polished silver plate armor, a white cloak billowing behind him. In his left hand he held a plain shield, polished until it shone brightly, and at his side an ornate red scabbard with an expensive looking golden sword hilt. The man himself was seemingly in his thirties, with long golden hair and a neatly cropped beard of the same colour. His striking features looked like as if he stepped right out of a legend of old.

"You... you must be Arthur", Kiritsugu gasped.

The man raised his eyebrows in visible confusion, then cracked up in laughter and finally presented a knowing smile.

"I'm flattered by your assumption, really. But I'm afraid you didn't get the Sword of the Morning. The one who answered your call is just the terrible, oath-breaking Kingslayer", he was maintaining the smile but had a hint of acid in his voice. "I hope you are not too disappointed to accept me as your champion."

"Kingslayer?", Kiritsugu echoed bewildered.

 _Was there a mistake? Did they give me the wrong catalyst? Kingslayer... this could get interesting._

The white knight watched his reaction with silent amusement, at least until Kiritsugu's wife Irisviel, who stood next to him during the whole ritual, caught his attention. He wasn't staring at her, but for the blink of an eye, he seemed surprised at seeing the silver-haired woman with her red eyes. Kiritsugu thought it was about her being a homunculus. You don't meet artificial humans all that often, but much to his own surprise, the knight just shook his head and laughed again.

"Oh, it seems I really blew it! The first time I have met someone before my reputation does and of course I have to introduce myself like this."

"There is nothing wrong with your introduction, knight. As long as you know why you are here", Kiritsugu said, still thinking about possible adjustments to his strategy.

"You want me to win this glorified cup of yours?", the knight said, his eyes suddenly glancing down to his right hand. He flexed it as if it was a new experience to him. "I do think this humble knight here can lend a hand."

 **Waver**

The force of the shockwave send the young student tumbling to the ground. His summoning was a success. All kinds of feelings went through his head and heart. Joy. Awe. Fear. Fear of what was about to come. Ever since his professor at the university in London had publicly denounced him, ripped his thesis to shreds in front of his class and ever since fate somehow decided to let a piece of cloak of Alexander the Great fall into his hands, he had waited for this moment to come. He would prove them all wrong. He would prove the whole Mage's Association that he, Waver Welvet, a lowly third generation mage, was able to participate in this high-stakes deathmatch and win. Because he had no one else than the greatest conqueror of all time as his partner. A man who went to the end of the known world and beyond. A man known to inspire loyalty even in former enemies. A man who bested the greatest empire of his time.

"A... Alexander?", he croaked.

The place of his summoning was a small clearing in the forest near Fuyuki. But when the soft gusts of wind dispersed the thick clouds of smoke covering his summoned hero, Waver's heart began to plummet down into his guts. This was definitely not Alexander the Great. It was a tall, muscled knight in dull plate mail, a golden shirt with the depiction of a black stag was draped over it and his shield had the same heraldry on it. The most threatening part of him was not the giant warhammer he held in his right hand, but the great antlered helmet that made him look like some terrifying demon. He stepped slowly towards Waver, who crouched backwards to escape him. Every step was accompanied by the rattle of his armor.

 _No, no, no... it can't be!_ , he thought aghast. _Berserker... don't tell me I somehow drew Berserker... I don't want to die so early in the ritual..._

"Huh?", the unknown hero grunted, his voice distorted by his helmet to sound metallic. "What are you doing down there on the ground, boy?"

Waver was too scared to say anything. He just lay there, staring up at the knight with wide eyes. He reacted by setting down his warhammer. The ground shook when its head hit the ground and it indeed caused a little crater to appear there. The knight then used his right hand to put off his antlered helmet to carry it under his armpit. Despite Wavers expectation of a face distorted by Mad Enhancement, his features were surprisingly human. A young man in his late twenties with jet-black hair, a shaggy beard and deep blue eyes. And he grinned broadly and warmly, much to Waver's relieve. It seemed he hadn't got Berserker after all.

"Now get up, boy! You are supposed to be my partner in this fun little game you invited me to. Behave like it!", he offered him his left hand, freeing it from under the straps of his shield when he reached out to him.

Hesitatingly, Waver took it with his own. The moment he touched the cold metal gauntlet, the hand of the giant closed to hold him in a tight grip and the very next second he was lifted onto his feet with a force that Waver feared his arm nearly got ripped off. The knight with the stag on his breast seemed not to be aware of it, even when Waver held his shoulder and grimaced in pain.

"What now, boy? Your greeting was a bit underwhelming, to be honest. Your fucking king has arrived! And he is more than ready to bash a few heads in!", his voice was coarse, but cut through the night air like a knife.

"A king... right... sorry", Waver just stuttered, every ounce of enthusiasm he had gained just a few days ago suddenly stripped from him.

The knight now eyed him with the hint of a frown.

"Don't be so shy. Who is it I have pledged my loyalty to? Who is this frail kid here who managed to drag me from my grave?"

"Ah... my... my name is Waver. Waver Velvet."

"Waver, huh? Strange name. And I've never heard of a house Velvet either", he mused more to himself than answering. "Anyway, I have to thank you for this chance here. Hah, what a feeling! I'm young again, I'm strong again! Bloody hells, I think I've gotten even stronger!"

"I'm glad to hear it", was the only thing Waver replied to his sudden outburst of shouting.

"You should be. We'll going to have fun, you and me here. Seven of the greatest heroes from across time and space coming together in a brawl. Whoever thought this whole grail thing up is a fucking genius! And to top it all off, a wish granted to the winner", he sighed, his clear blue eyes focusing on his summoner. "You know what this means?"

"No...", Waver answered truthfully, sounding every bit as stupid as he felt.

He never had that clear a wish to begin with. Waver only wanted to get treated equally by other mages. He never fooled himself to believe that this wish would be fulfilled through only winning, he needed the grail to change a society stuck in centuries of conservatism. But he thought that was nothing he could openly tell anyone without looking like a total idiot.

"Well, then we'll see to change that", the knight declared, before picking up his hammer again and lifting it to the skies. "I swear it by all the seven gods, I will get that wish! You hear me up there, Lyanna? I'll come and get you, this time for sure! This time I will make it right, I will save you! And whoever stands in my way will hear our words like that bastard Rhaegar before them: Ours is the fury!"

 **Kayneth**

Lord Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi was not a man who was fond of surprises. Him participating in the Holy Grail War and winning it should have been the crowning moment of his academic career at the Clock Tower University and the pinnacle of his reputation among the Mage's society. He couldn't expect that his crushing of the delusional dreams of a particularly grating student of his would result in his expensive and difficult to find catalyst getting stolen. He never let that drag him down though. People shouldn't say Lord Archibald El-Melloi wasn't able to adapt to changing situations. He just had to prove that he needn't the piece of cloak of Alexander the Great to win the Grail. So he acquired another artefact. The remains of a spear belonging to Diarmuid ua Duibne, a famous Irish hero. But now, standing there together with his fiancée in front of the person he summoned, he got the feeling that this catalyst was either a fake or didn't work for some reason. Another surprise, sadly. The man in front of him was a spearman, but certainly not a Celtic warrior. It was a tanned man with black hair, wearing a light armor of boiled leather and a polished round shield with the depiction of a red sun pierced by a spear on a golden ground. Gold and red were also the colours he was clad in.

"And who are you supposed to be, Servant?", Kayneth groaned impatiently.

His familiar was seemingly taken aback, looking back at him with raised eyebrows.

"Is this the way you address a Prince of Dorne?", he asked back.

"Never heard of that place", he said with a dismissing hand gesture. "I was expecting Diarmuid O'Dyna. I ask you why you answered my call instead."

The stranger, still a bit dumbfounded, tried to gloss over the tone of his Master with an edgy smile. There was a hint of defiance in it that made Kayneth sick.

"You called, I answered. This is all I can say. I don't know this Durmut-guy you are referencing, but I can assure, you won't find this spear of mine lacking. They don't call me the Red Viper for nothing."

"I will hope so", he replied, scrutinizing that weapon of his.

It was a simple spear, looking as sharp as if you could shave yourself with it. But it had an oily glistering to it as if it was drenched in something very unhealthy.

"So, then for whom have I the honor to fight for? And who is this charming lady next to him?", he said, giving his smile now to his fiancée, Sola-ui, who giggled in response.

"You are lucky enough to be in servitude of Lord Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, head of the long-lasting house Archibald. With your spear and my offensive magic, the other teams will be little competition."

"Then we're two. I never heard of that house as well. And as a piece of advice: Where I come from, it is common courtesy to introduce your consort as well."

Kayneth grunted. Now this was just great. A Servant was supposed to swear undying loyalty to him but for some reason he was blessed to get one who talked back and even dared to admonish his courtesy.

"My name is Sola-ui Nuada-re Sophia-re, Lancer. But you can just call me Sola-ui", she replied in his stead.

"It's a pleasure", the prince of Dorne bowed deeply. "I'm glad that wherever you go, you can find beautiful flowers like you. Even in this strange world that is so different from the Westeros I know. I presume you are the wife of my Master?"

"Not yet", she replied, cocking her head.

"But we are promised to each other", Kayneth interjected.

"Ah, and as it seems, wherever you go, the customs seem the same. Being a third son surely had its merits when it came to being with whom you love", he made a mocking sigh. "But anyways, I've got some bits and pieces about this Earth of yours and am quite thrilled. I've travelled half of my world, living to fullest, learning to fullest, experiencing to the fullest. But I've never visited a country as alien as yours and wouldn't like to miss the chance to see it with my own eyes before the killing starts."

"You are not here for sightseeing...", Kayneth groaned.

It seemed his precious Sola-ui had a different opinion. She was favouring their Servant with a warm smile, before she faced him.

"Don't be so harsh. We are all going to work together, aren't we? Especially with your cunning modification to let me supply Lancer with the mana he needs to exist, we should better learn to know each other. To trust each other. And wouldn't it be just a great start with a little tour through London?"

Kayneth sighed and scratched the back of his head in confusion. He knew she had the right of it. With him not being Diarmuid, he had to adjust his plans somehow. And therefore he should learn what this strange so-called prince was capable of.

 **Kariya**

The smug smile of that bastard Zouken was the worst of it. Kariya was standing there, deep down in the stony vaults of the Matou residence, barely able to stand on his crippled legs. The summoning had robbed him of all strength he had. He felt the crest worms which infested his body crawling frantically, many of them dying and withering away under his flesh. But it was done. He, who had renounced his family magic a decade ago, was able to summon his own hero to win this Grail War. It was his only chance of redemption for having failed the woman he loved. And to save her daughter from the clutches of that vampire Zouken. One year of preparation. One year of unimaginable agony. But Kariya was not one to give up on a path he has chosen for himself. Zouken was convinced of his certain death, but he was going to prove him wrong. For he could endure it. He had to. For Sakura. For Aoi. And for Rin. There he stood, staring down the monstrosity he called forth from the abyss. He knew it was Berserker. He had used the modified summoning chant that doomed his hero to loose his mind, causing him to be a raging madman. And truly frightening he was.

Berserker was an eight feet tall mass of muscle and steel, covered in layers and layers of chain and plate mail, a thick unadorned helmed obscuring his face. In his left hand he held a giant wooden shield that could have easily been a table. And in his right was an enormous two-handed greatsword he held with one hand like it was a toy. The cloth he wore over his armor was yellow and displayed a column of three black hounds. A mad dog he was, that was something Kariya was able to see. He was not well read in Arthurian myths, but he wasn't quite sure this mountain of a man should have been summoned by the piece of the round table Zouken organised for him. He didn't care either way. He would have to put his trust into this knight no matter who he was. For he was not fighting for his own life, but for those who were dear to him.

 **Ryouunosuke**

"Do you think demons exist, kiddo?", Ryouunosuke said with his most charming smile. "All the papers and magazines call me a demon. But wouldn't that be kinda rude if demons really exist? You've gotta be clear about these things."

The apartment was dark and the iron smell of blood was in the stale air. It was a smell he was very familiar with. It smelled like a job well done to him.

"Sup! I'm Ryuunosuke Uryuu, and I'm a demon!", he shouted with a mocking salute.

The little boy who lay in front of him whimpered and cried in panic, his voice muffled by the piece of tape that covered his mouth. With his arms and legs bound like a tiny little package, he had already watched how this stranger, who had suddenly burst into his house, slaughtered his parents to perform this summoning ritual of his with their blood. Ryouunosuke was quite surprised he still had so much struggle left in him as he was squirming on the ground, scraping and cutting himself in his futile attempt to loosen his fixed arms and legs. Most of his other victims gave themselves up at that point, boring him out of his mind.

 _If this ritual fails again, we're going to have so much fun._ , he thought happily, his mind racing about where he would begin with his work.

But then he stopped himself abruptly, thinking back on what would happen if he actually did have success. His ancestors were pretty much into this occult stuff and he believed there had to be a reason for it.

"I dunno if that's how I should be introducing myself", he sighed.

A demon could get angry if he presumed so much, or at least that was what he expected. He had to somehow befriend it, that was sure.

"Ya know. If a demon really did come out, it'd be pretty dumb to just chat with it and have nothing to offer him", he mused, walking around the blood splattered circle he painted onto the ground. "If a demon really does show up... Mind if we let it eat you?"

The boy reacted with a desperate shriek, endlessly amusing to Ryuunosuke. He could not help but laugh in glee. This play of hope and despair was the only thing worth living for to him. The press painted him as if he would hate people, but it was much the opposite. He loved them! He loved life itself! He found it fascinating. Especially when it ended with so many emotions.

"I wonder what it's like, being killed by a demon! Not many people get to experience that- huh?", a little, piercing pain went through his right hand.

When he looked at it, a strange red symbol was burning itself into it. Whirling around, he looked at his magic circle and could not help but stare in amazement at what was materializing there.

 _Is this a demon?_

It was a woman. And he found her absolutely beautiful. Clad in a red dress, with long flowing red hair and a necklace with a glowing ruby at her throat. She was not a girl anymore, but her age was difficult to guess. Everything around her was mysterious to him. And there was this aura of hers. Only a moment ago, the room was in complete darkness, but after her arrival, everything seemed to be brightly lit. She was eying her surroundings and while a hint of disgust betrayed her face, Ryuunosuke could only guess she was disappointed with his art.

 _You can't argue about art, can you?_

She then looked at him and spoke:

"Are you the one who called me into this world?"

"Huh... yeah. Kind of...", he said, unsure.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Ryuunosuke Uryuu. I'm currently between jobs... and I like killing people. Very much."

"So this is your work?", she looked at the corpses of the parents he had arranged on the couch, looking as if it was a happy family watching TV. So much of a happy family they even swapped body parts.

Ryuunosuke gave her his most proud smile.

"Of course it is! Well, I'm still experimenting a bit, so I have not a real trademark style yet. But I'm getting better!"

She stared at him with a serious expression. His smile faltered. She didn't look very happy. And then she looked down onto the boy behind him, who still made whimpering sounds. He nearly forgot him.

 _Where is my courtesy, damnit?_

"How about a sacrifice? You wanna eat that kid?", he offered nervously.

The boy screeched pitifully as if to reinforce his nonchalant gesture.

"Do you believe in god?", the red woman finally asked.

"Of course I do!", Ryuunosuke replied happily. "He is the greatest artist of all!"

"At least something...", she stepped closer to him.

Ryuunosuke began to sweat. It was as if the temperature in the room had suddenly gone up several notches. She was the source, he suddenly realized. She was emitting an enormous heat. She even smelled like warm fire when she stood directly in front of him. The red woman then touched his breast, directly over his heart. Her hand was soft and perfect and warm. Warm above everything else. And it became warmer. Hot even. When he looked down, he realized it was glowing brightly. Magic. His body was trembling as the heat poured through every vein of his, suppressing any thought he might have had about it.

"May the Lord of Light cleanse your soul from the darkness!", she prayed. "May his voice guide you towards the light and shield you from the night. For the night is dark and full of terrors!"

He didn't intend to, but his mouth opened regardless.

"For the night is dark and full of terrors!", he repeated, completely overcome by a sudden sense of joy.

Ryuunosuke felt at peace. For the first time in his life.

 **Tokiomi**

It was not a good day for Tokiomi Tohsaka. His apprentice and ally was not a man who openly showed his emotions, but when Kirei entered his office, worry was plainly written across his face. He told him about his botched summoning and how he got a little girl instead of the master of assassins. Tokiomi had no choice but to accept this sudden turn of events and adjust his plans. He was glad that his catalyst, a fossilized snake skin symbolizing the first skin ever shed, had just arrived in time. He would have liked to wait a few more days, at least until his family was able to move out of the house. But just in case anything happened to his summoning as well, he had no choice but to minimize the risks and give himself more time to plan his actions. He summoned the third member of their little alliance, the referee from the church and father of Kirei, Risei Kotomine, and went to the vaults under the Tohsaka residence to perform their ritual. There they stood all together. The two priests, the silent girl Assassin and finally himself, the Magus in his elegant red suite. When he first lay his eyes onto the girl, his first thoughts were about his own daughter. He knew the summoned heroes were nothing more like pawns to be sacrificed, drawn into this ritual by their past regrets. As a Magus he knew he should be indifferent to them, but as a father he could not help but wonder what happened to this girl to find herself in such a situation. And why he had to assume by her appearance that she never reached adulthood in life...

But these were thoughts for another day. This evening, the moment of victory for Tokiomi Tohsaka and the conclusion to the struggle of generations of Tohsakas should be reached. He was going to gain his wish to reach the root to Akasha, the root to all life and the mystery all Magi are aspiring to solve. And for this cause he was going to summon the oldest of all heroes, Gilgamesh, King of Uruk. Predating all their enemies by a large margin, he should find no trouble to obliterate them all. He spoke the chant and indeed, he successfully summoned a spirit who could be the promised hero. The blonde at least wore a richly ornamented gilded armor, had a well crafted crossbow at his side and on his belt hung a red scabbard with rows and rows of golden lion heads with rubies for eyes. But much to Tokiomi's chagrin, this so-called hero was also just a boy only slightly older than the girl. He was just going to address his Servant when he saw in the corner of his eye that Assassin tensed immediately upon the boy's arrival.

"No...", she just gasped.

Tokiomi turned to her, but it was too late. She was already a blur of black, having drawn her sword and jumping at the boy. Despite his knightly appearance, the boy who was likely not Gilgamesh was completely taken by surprise, stumbling backwards and falling. In shock of the sudden attack, he was barely able to defend himself from the first blow by getting his crossbow between himself and the girl. The slender rapier cut its wood deeply and stopped only a tiny inch in front of his wide-eyed face. While Tokiomi just stood there in shock, Kirei had already raised his hand before the girl stabbed at him a second time.

" **Don't!** ", his baritone voice echoed through the caverns and was accompanied by a red magical shockwave.

A command spell. He had to use one of his three command spells to make her stop. Gulping, Tokiomi realized how fast all his carefully laid out plans were crumbling away before his eyes. The girl would have gutted the boy where he stood if the command spell had not frozen her body in place. And she was furious. She desperately fought against the will of her Master, screaming and trembling. But she was unable to make another advance while the shocked boy crawled backwards like a golden bug put on his back. So much for an unbeatable hero...

"I already told you we are allied. You are not supposed to kill him!", Kirei spoke to her, confused himself about her sudden burst of emotion.

"I don't care!", she screeched, her voice full of agony. "Release me! Release me and let me finish him or you will rue it!"

"Why would you do that?", Kirei asked with wide eyes.

She turned to Kirei and Tokiomi saw tears in her eyes when she shot him a murderous look which could have killed every lesser man.

"He murdered my father!", she cried out, still struggling against the invisible shackles of the spell which stayed her hands. And it send a shiver through Tokiomi's spine.

 _What in the world is happening here?_


	2. Chapter 2 - Teamwork

Author's Note: I initially wanted to wait with the publication of this chapter until after I have finished the next one for the Einzbern Grail War (which is currently half-way done), but some study-related events have left me in a great mood, so I wanted to share it with you. I hope this chapter can set the tone for how I am going to tackle this crossover. And I of course also hope that I get the unique personalities of everyone right. Enjoy!

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Chapter 2 - Teamwork

 **Jaime**

He had seen quite a lot of castles in his life. From all those tiny holdfast speckling the countryside to that molten monstrosity which was Harrenhall. From the mighty Casterly Rock carved out of the cliffside above Lannisport to the Red Keep looming over the stinking hive which was called King's Landing. But Jaime had never seen a more purposeless approach than he saw in that Einzbern 'castle'. There were no feasible defences to speak of. No castle moat, no embrasures for archers and the walls, while looking impressively high, were neatly mend together with the bricks of the roof, thus robbing itself of space that could be better used for more defenders. In fact Jaime thought any enemy who manages to break through the main gate had already successfully overcome any defence it had to speak of. It was more like a pimped up mansion, a tiny palace in the middle of the forest. Calling it a castle was preposterous, but there was a tiny shred of doubt in Jaime's evaluation. The Einzberns were mages, that was something the guy with the squinty eyes and the unspeakable name told him. So there might have been some dark magics at work which were unknown to the knight.

Jaime Lannister was wandering around the 'castle' in his full Kingsguard armor, dragging his white cloak through the snow. He had just excused himself to take a bit time for himself, to think about the situation he had found himself in. But soon enough, he simply began to analyze his surroundings as if he still were inspecting a castle in Westeros.

 _I'm not in my world anymore..._

He died. That was clear. He still vividly had the picture in front of him. How he breathed his last breath with salt on his lips. Then there was darkness. Darkness for an immeasurable amount of time. And then, finally, there was an offer. A wish. The chance to set one wrong of his life right. Without thinking, Jaime accepted and the very next moment he found himself in this strange world. Alive again. Whole again. He still didn't know exactly how he wanted to use said wish, he only knew he had damn good need of it.

 _What should change? When I decided to kill her and lost my love? No, that was right. When I lost my hand and myself? No, I needed that too. When I pushed the Stark boy out of a window and plunged the country into war? Maybe... but it triggered so much more. When I slit Aerys' throat and lost my honor forever? Yes... no... I lost my honor much earlier. Back when he offered me my place in the Kingsguard and I readily accepted, like the green boy I was. But what then? Surely things would have changed. Or maybe, maybe nothing at all. And then I would have ridden into the city at the side of my father, unsuspecting and sporting my golden armor. And then I would have burned to death like everyone else. Not a fine death, no... but an honorable one. This way the Kingslayer had never existed._

He was still musing about endless possibilities when he turned around a corner and found himself in a grove full of snow-covered trees. In the middle of it all, there was the figure of a man in black cradling a little girl clad thickly in a violet jacked. Jaime stopped, not wanting to interrupt them, but the man looked up and let go of her.

"Saber?", it was the man with the unpronounceable name again, the man who proclaimed himself his Master and to whom he had spoken some magical oath or something.

"Sorry, I didn't intend to disturb."

The girl turned around, watching him with wide red eyes. Her white skin and silver hair made Jaime shiver despite not being bothered by the cold.

 _Gods, she looks like her mother. Stranded in a different world and of course I stumble upon the only two people with Targaryen features._

"Saber?", she echoed the words of her father.

"It's the man who accompanies me to that job I've told you about", he commented.

"Hello, little princess", Jaime set up his most charming smile, stepping closer. "With whom do I have the honor?"

"I'm Ilya!", she proclaimed proudly.

"Nice to meet you, Ilya. What are you two doing out here in the snow?", Jaime kneeled down to her so they could talk face to face with each other.

He must have made a strange impression how he watched her in wonder. This child reminded him so much of someone long dead, he could not help but stare.

"I've been competing with Kiritsugu", she explained. "I am going to find more walnut buds than he does."

 _Pretty impressive. So small and can already speak his name without slipping up. Even I cannot do that._

"Sounds like fun", he chirped. "Do you mind if I join?"

"Only if you don't play foul like that cheater over there", she said, causing Kiritsugu to sigh rather embarrassedly.

"I would never dare thinking about that", Jaime replied, frowning about the implications.

"Yeah, another competitor!", she cheered and charged forward into the woods.

Kiritsugu followed her, Jaime falling in at his side after he stood up.

"Your daughter?", Jaime asked while he was looking for his first score.

"Yes", Emiya said solemnly.

"I didn't take you for a family person", the knight commented.

"Me neither. I never thought I'd ever settle down like this", Kiritsugu replied, his voice sounding grave.

Jaime nodded in understanding.

"How old is she?"

"Eight", Kiritsugu said.

The knight shot him a confused glance.

"Eight? You're fooling me here."

His icy glare seemed utterly serious.

"Ilya grows slower than other children", his Master admitted then.

"I see. Well, I'm not one to judge. My brother always refused grow his last few feet."

They continued their walk for a few more minutes in silence. Little Ilya managed to add two more to her score during that.

"Were you a father?", Kiritsugu suddenly said.

Now it was Jaime's turn to grimace.

"I always preferred the role of the fun uncle everyone likes", Jaime replied.

Putting it like this made it only half a lie.

 _Not that I ever managed to properly be that either._

"We will have to speak about you and where you come from. Later", Kiritsugu said matter-of-factly.

"Sure... But I have to warn you. I caused the Maester who taught me my letters quite a few grey hairs by falling asleep. If you want an accurate history of Westeros, you should have summoned my brother. I'm not a good storyteller, I never was much more than my sword hand."

"It will suffice."

"And we will need wine", Jaime added thoughtfully. "A lot of wine. Telling stories is a thirsty business."

 **Arya**

He was not angry. And for some reason Arya found that unsettling. He should have been angry. He had to use one of his precious command spells. But instead of admonishing her, they were just sitting there in his room, staring at each other. Kotomine was a strange man. Arya was taught to study somebody's face, but she was barely able to make sense out of this one. Instead of being angry, he studied her face more in curiosity... and much to her confusion, with the hint of amusement.

"Who are you?", he suddenly thundered with his deep voice.

"No one", Arya replied.

"A lie", Kotomine commented without a second of hesitation.

Arya bit her lip. It was the House of Black and White all over again.

"How should you know?", she snapped, too agitated to not let it out.

"No one would have no grudges against that boy Tokiomi summoned. Who is he?"

"Joffrey... Joffrey Baratheon", Arya replied, gritting her teeth.

"And you hate him?", Kotomine cocked his head.

"Of course I do...", she grumbled.

"I see. Who are you then?"

"No one", Arya hissed.

"A lie. No one would have no father to avenge. How did he call you?"

She looked at him with anger swelling in her stomach. She wanted to tell him that it was of no business to him. But his relentlessness made her falter. She had the feeling this game could go on forever if she continued to be stubborn.

"Arya...", she said sheepishly.

"Very good. I am glad you start to be honest with me. Then, Arya, who are you?"

She broke their locked stares and cast her eyes to the ground.

"No one", she said.

"A lie", he sighed. "Your last lie, I hope. It gets tiresome like this."

"Then just stop asking me", Arya groaned.

"I can't... You attacked the Servant of my ally and I need to persuade you to stop your hostilities."

"Why should I? It doesn't matter. If I don't kill him, someone else does."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

Arya vividly remembered the scene at the Trident. Her standing above the bleeding boy, a sword at his throat. She could have finished him then and there. If she did, Lady would have lived and she wouldn't have been forced to release Nymeria... and her father would have lived. But it was not that she remembered the most. It were his eyes. Joffrey's eyes full of terror. He had the same eyes only a moment ago when she was attacking him. He hadn't changed at all.

 _How could someone so pathetic do so much damage?_

"If your friend puts his trust into Joffrey, he is already as good as dead. And if you stick to your alliance, your cause is doomed as well", Arya explained darkly. "Just let me finish him and be done with it. It would save you two a lot of trouble."

Kotomine frowned:

"Why do you think Tokiomi's Servant will cause his demise?"

"He is useless, that's all I need to say about him. He speaks boldly and pretends to be charming, but he is just pathetic. And cruel. Cruel above everything else."

"You said he killed your father", Kirei stated in confusion.

"Not he himself. Ilyn Payne did that. He just betrayed him. Branded him a traitor and executed him. My father would have never let himself killed by him in a fair fight."

"I see..."

Arya sighed. Her cover was blown. She wouldn't be able to switch to one of her other personas in front of Kirei anymore. She was not no one. She was Arya Stark again. But at least as Arya she knew what was right.

"Do you let me kill him then?", she asked warily.

"I don't think so", he replied thoughtfully.

"Why? I told you how useless he is. If it is not too late, your friend could still summon someone else."

"Maybe. But you have to see, Tokiomi wouldn't take that as kindly as you would."

Arya's face darkened.

"You only have two command spells left. You can't stop me forever."

 **Jaime**

He whistled in appreciation when the two of them entered the wine cellar. Numerous shelves with rare bottles were arranged down there in the usual cold and dry atmosphere. Squinty-eyes took one of the less expensive ones and guided him thereafter to one of the solars above. They had left little Ilya with Irisviel after the girl had beaten them handily in her game.

"So... the way I see it the Grail had some serious malfunction causing it to summon a hero not originating from Earth. What can you tell me about the world you are from, Saber?", Kiritsugu asked while pouring them two glasses of red.

Jaime tasted and raised his eyebrows. It was a surprisingly strong wine, but still of high quality. It could have easily rivalled the wineries of the Arbor.

"Well, there is quite a lot to tell. Where should we start?"

"How about the place you come from?", his Master proposed while lighting a cigarette.

Jaime frowned after he realized how ordinary it looked to him. It was strange that he knew what a cigarette was. But he decided not to comment on the awful stench and focused on his story.

"Mmh... that would be Casterly Rock. That's the place I was born... The eldest son of Lord Tywin Lannister, brother to a sweet sister and a 'little' brother in the truest sense of the word."

"A son of a Lord?", he asked, exhaling the poisonous smoke.

Jaime chuckled.

"A Lord Paramount. If he was born a couple of centuries before, he would have been king. The Kingdom of the Rock was one of the seven kingdoms making up Westeros. You must know how such a story usually goes. If two argue with each other, a third one gets to laugh. If seven argue with each other, an eighth one comes along with a crop of dragons and burns them all to death. This way the Targaryen dynasty came to power and ruled the seven kingdoms for three hundred years. At least until the last one was unfortunate enough to get me as a Kingsguard", he donned his most mischievous smile.

Kiritsugu seemed not impressed. Or at least Jaime was not able to tell. He was studying his face without betraying a hint of his thoughts.

"You said you were known as Kingslayer. Why did you kill him?"

Jaime paused. It was as if the Grail gave him the opportunity to have a taste of what he could do with his wish. Squinty-eyes had no idea what Jaime had done to get his cursed title. Theoretically he could tell him every story he wanted to tell. Lie as much as he wanted. How should he prove him wrong? He had to accept it as truth. There was nobody around who was able to give a different version to condemn him. If Jaime had not slipped up during the summoning, he could have presented himself as 'Goldenhands the Just' for all he knew. But instead Jaime sighed. He knew the risk of telling the truth all too well. He broke his oath, that was all it came down to after all. If he told him the truth, chances were he simply dismissed it as sorry attempt of justifying his horrid actions.

"It really depends on who you ask...", Jaime replied, trying to evade the question.

"I ask you", Kiritsugu said grimly, not having touched his wine.

Jaime nodded. So he wanted to hear his version and no one else's. Maybe he should tell him everything, but his oath to keep the secrets of the king still rang in his head. He looked down at the red and then at the golden sword at his side.

"Let's just say King Aerys was not the most exemplary king who ever lived. And I not the most exemplary knight. There was a rebellion going on. His mistreated subjects rallied to get his head. I was faster. When my father entered the capital and sacked it, I slit the king's throat to get rid of him."

"I don't want just the events, I want to hear your reasoning", Kiritsugu said seriously.

"Sure... what do you want to hear? The version in which I just acted on behalf of my father? The version in which I wanted to end the civil war in a way that guaranteed a pardon of the fat oaf who took the throne thereafter?", he didn't intend to sound so harshly, but his voice was acid regardless. "Or the version where I just felt like it?"

Kiritsugu shook his head.

"No, this is not what I meant. Let's take a different approach... what would have happened if the king escaped the capital? Would the war have dragged on? Would more people have died?"

"The king never intended to flee", Jaime said truthfully. "But yes, if he lived only minutes longer, many more people would have joined him in his grave."

"So as far as I can see it, it was the right decision", his Master said, shrugging.

Jaime was taken aback, not knowing what to say. He never even got to the part where the king threatened to blow up the city and kill more than half a million people just out of spite. And this man here already supported his decision, dismissing his honor as if it wouldn't have been a factor for his decision.

 _It must be a cultural thing, he has no idea what that meant for a knight._

"I broke my oath when I turned against him", Jaime said slowly. "I soiled my honor forever that day. The irony of a member of the Kingsguard killing his own king, the whole realm never let me forget it."

"I can imagine it. Doing the right thing is often painful and many don't understand. I learned so myself the hard way", Emiya's eyes never met Jaime's when he spoke. "But as long as you think the sacrifice was worth the lives you saved, there should be nothing to worry about."

Jaime thought about the words and found himself agreeing. He served justice where other, more honorable men, would just have watched.

 _All these knights who served with me. They were all much better in ignoring injustice, in going away inside when they witnessed the mad king at his gruesome work. And at the end of the day I was the one with shit for honor..._

"So then... Kitsugi Emiya, what is your story?", Jaime then asked.

"There is not much to say", he explained. "I only ever had one profession. To kill. Magi, Dead Apostles, humans. Anything that could disturb the balance of the world. Despite earning my money as a professional killer, I only ever took on jobs I felt were right to do. When the Einzbern family offered me the chance to be their champion in the Holy Grail War, it was an opportunity I could have never refused."

Jaime thought there was something odd about his story, but he needed several seconds to realize what it was. His family. The Einzberns, the guys who owned the castle he had found himself in, he married one of them.

"Did you meet Irisviel before or after you joined their cause?", he asked in honest curiosity.

Kiritsugu shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Let us just say she was part of the deal. But it doesn't matter. She is my wife regardless and she and Ilya are all I have left in my life."

"So why abandoning your cosy new life to go hunting a cup? What is in it for you?"

The man in black paused, seemingly thinking about his question. Jaime thought he looked nearly sheepishly when he answered:

"I want to save the world."

"What?", Jaime was aghast. "Don't tell me the Others are trying to get yours!"

"I... don't know what you mean", Kiritsugu frowned. "If you think about a single, tangible threat... no, there is no single one I need the Grail for."

"What then?"

Kiritsugu grimaced as if he was unsure, but when he took a breath and told him, he sounded completely behind his quest.

"I want to end all conflict. Forever."

Jaime's eyes widened. He could not help it, he just had to laugh out loud. It was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. What kind of adult child called himself his Master? Kiritsugu himself stared at him with his usual icy glare while putting out his cigarette in the ashtray between them.

"It was a mistake to tell you. I should have known better", he groaned, standing up to leave.

"Wait", Jaime called out, raising his hands soothingly "It was just an unexpected answer. I'm sorry, but you have to admit it sounds pretty crazy."

Still standing, Kiritsugu turned back to him, the hint of a bitter smile on his face.

"Is it really so unbelievable? Is violence so deeply rooted in human nature that you call me crazy only for wishing peace?", the loathing was clearly audible in his voice.

The knight grimaced. He could not deny that violence was part of his own nature. He only ever truly felt alive when he was fighting or when... when he was with Cersei. And even that was pointless self-torture more than anything else.

"It is a nice dream", Jaime admitted. "A world where the likes of us would be completely worthless."

"Exactly", Kiritsugu nodded and Jaime felt that he now had a spark of fire in his eyes, even if only for a short moment.

"Still... an impossible dream..."

"You see, this is the point where I need the Grail to make it true."

"Because it is omnipotent", Jaime realized. "You are really going to make full use of it, don't you? Changing the very laws of how society works..."

"I only grasp opportunities when they arise. And an opportunity it is. For me to never have to raise my gun again. And for my daughter to never know fear."

 **Kayneth**

It was the most horrible day in his entire life. His feet ached and he was completely exhausted when he arrived home. But the most startling aspect was that Sola-ui still seemed to have energy left and was still gushing about all the places they had visited. She sat on the couch together with Lancer and showed him all the photos they made during their whole bloody tourist tour through London. They visited the Houses of Parliament, had seen the Buckingham Palace, were wandering through Harrods, visiting the British Museum, and the Clocktower University beneath while they were in the area. At least Kayneth was able to talk her out of Madame Tussaud's. They saw 'Much ado about Nothing' at the Globe instead and Lancer greatly enjoyed the play. Kayneth himself was weary and found it agitating to get dragged through half the city, but if it was to seal their alliance, fine. He could live with it. But sadly, he had the feeling that she was only entertaining him like a guest. And while they talked quite a while about Earth in general and England in specific, they only learned very few bits about the world he was from. It vexed him to be left in the dark, especially since the Grail quite obviously malfunctioned.

"Sola-ui, dear. Would you mind fetch us a pot of tea? We have a lot to discuss."

She halted amidst her conversation and shot him an irritated look. Sighing, she let go of her camera, but only after several seconds of weighing her options.

"Of course you do. I'll be at it."

She stood up and went to the kitchen, finally leaving Kayneth and Lancer alone.

"Now then, how did you like your tour, Prince Oberyn", he addressed his Servant.

"Oh, it surely was fascinating. Your world has its own kind of magic to it. A magic of science. Many Maesters of the Citadel would kill to get a chance to study your electronic technology. Cars and telephones and computers, all of it."

"Pah...", Kayneth wheezed. "Toys made for those pitiable beings who are born ungifted. The true magic of our world lies within the Clocktower university."

Oberyn gave him an understanding smile.

"Sure... I would have to lie if I don't say I wasn't thrilled by seeing an institution the size of the Citadel completely focusing on the supernatural arts. I had forged a link of a Maester's chain of Valyrian steel myself there and it was a rather pitiful affair."

He had no idea what he meant with Valyrian steel, but this 'Citadel' he was referencing sounded like a university to him.

"You studied magic in your world?", Kayneth asked with a frown.

The Lancer-class might limit his abilities, but having summoned the spirit of a Magus could make him far more versatile than he had initially expected. Oberyn indeed reacted with something that looked like a smug smile.

"You must understand the Citadel itself is not a nice place for those who wish to open their mind to the supernatural. When I expressed this wish my master locked me into a dark room with a candle made of razor-sharp glass, telling me not to leave before either the morrow came or I was able to light it."

Kayneth folded his hands, thinking about the tale.

"It does sound like a simple test to me", he commented with his knowledge as a teacher. "As an initiate you should be able to find a way. Would it have been enough to just increase its deflective capabilities until it was able to amplify the given light in the room? Or were you supposed to pour prana into it until it glowed by itself?"

Oberyn chuckled as if he just made a joke.

"Neither! It was not a test of resolve. Not at all. You are not expected to succeed since nobody was able to light such a candle for decades. They wanted to whittle me down until I admit that it is not possible by human means."

"What?", Kayneth was startled. "That's ridiculous!"

"Indeed. So did I tell them as well. And only one listened. A very gifted Archmaester called Martyn, who took me under his wing and accompanied me on my travels to distant lands after I got bored of the Citadel. There I learned what little magic was left in my world."

Kayneth frowned.

"What do you mean? Did you finally lit that damn candle?"

Lancer shook his head, seemingly disappointed about himself.

"Never. When the last dragons in both Westeros and Essos died, all wonder fled from my world's surface. All what was left were humans with human abilities, human desires and human ambitions."

"A truly sad world", Kayneth admitted.

It was hard for him to imagine how he would live without any of his abilities. In a world where anyone was as pathetic as these mindless sheep who populated Earth.

"But you said you learned something?", Kayneth leaned forward.

"Oh yes of course... you see, I am not a man who gives up easily. I cannot rival a shadowbinder of Asshai, but I have a knack when it comes to potions and poisons. Most people connect me to the latter, but to be honest such a reputation has its merits. 'Red Viper' they call me. And everyone who ever wronged me was surely squinting into his cup before drinking out of it."

"So what exactly can you do?", Kayneth asked warily.

He hadn't the impression after the story he told that Lancer's alchemy skills were all that useful.

"For your world it might not sound very impressive, but within the limits of my world I was rather proud of my ability to tinker with the effects of the ingredients I chose. I could take a simple laxative and amplify it until a victim literally released his bowels when he visited the privy. I could also dampen the taste of a poison until it is completely untraceable when you pour it into someone's wine. And then... there was my most precious work. An insanely potent manticore poison mixed with my best healing potion."

"Why should anyone do that?", Kayneth frowned.

Oberyn however grinned viciously.

"You ask why? I tell you why. Justice. Vengeance. Imagine a fire burning in you for seventeen years. A fire that could only be extinguished by making a certain beast of a man suffer as much as you and its victims did. My poison worked on simple principles. On the one hand is its lethality", he raised his left hand, holding it in front of his face, only to then lift his right one as well, slightly beneath it. "On the other hand is its healing ability. The trick is to make the lethality overweigh the healing factor for only the tiniest possible fraction. So if you only scratch your enemy, his death is already decided."

"But he won't die. The healing magic will prolong the end as much as humanly possible", Kayneth realized in horror.

"Days, maybe weeks. For those who deserve such a punishment, the Red Viper isn't content with just killing them. They shall know how they die. And they shall live through every moment of it in agony."

The glare Lancer shot him was intense. Kayneth gulped in his understanding, beginning to slightly feel colder. He realized he was sitting in front of a truly dangerous man. And it was just this moment Sola-ui used to enter.

"The tea is ready", she announced innocently.

 **Joffrey**

He was glad to be able to talk to the person who summoned him under four eyes. His priestly lackey managed to drag the wolf girl away from him and disappeared with her into his own chambers while he and his Master had remained in the dungeon beneath his residence. Joffrey had to collect himself. There was rarely a moment in his life where he felt as humiliated as he was down here.

 _That insufferable whelp of a traitor, how dares she to attack me?_

"I hope you have finally calmed yourself", the Master in his red suit said.

"Of course I have...", Joffrey grumbled. "I just lost my footing back then. It's not my fault if I get jumped at amidst my summoning."

The man sighed.

"I take it you are not Gilgamesh?"

"Who?", Joffrey asked back.

"Nevermind..."

Joffrey took a deep breath. That strange warlock not addressing him as 'your Grace' likely meant he was not realizing with whom he was talking to. Since he was thrown into this unknown world with only a tedious grasp on what he was getting involved with he only had to assume it was the same thing with that guy. His confusion only added to such a conclusion. Joffrey thought he had to be merciful in this case and since he had no announcer at hand, he had to introduce himself on his own. He raised his chin and took on royal posture.

"You have the honor of being let into battle by Joffrey Baratheon, the first of his name. King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men. Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. This is name of the hero you have summoned."

"I see", the man did a small bow. "It is a honor to meet a king. My name is Tokiomi Tohsaka, your Majesty. I promise I will provide you with all help you will need to win this Grail War."

"Of course you will", Joffrey proclaimed, nearly rolling his eyes. "And the correct addressing would be 'your Grace'."

"Yes, your Grace", he bowed again.

 _Well, this turned out better than expected..._

"Fine. Now that we have exchanged our names like it is common courtesy, let us come to the point of it, Tohsaka", he made a dramatic pause before continuing. "What was that Stark girl doing at my summoning?"

The man in the suit grimaced, obviously uncomfortable in his skin.

"As you can see, I had not intended to summon the king of the Andals, but the king of Uruk, your Grace. I am sorry for the events getting out of hand, but I was not aware that there were chances that Kirei's Servant could hold a grudge against you."

"Mmh... as unfortunate as it was, I am still wondering why you invited her in the first place. I was told this melee of yours makes us enemies no matter our previous encounters."

"This is easy to explain, your Grace. Kirei is my disciple in the art of magic. Years ago we made up the plan to participate as a team in the Grail War with our Servants working side by side to defeat the other ones."

Joffrey didn't like it. He could not work together with the spawn of a traitor, much less with this one. She made him look like a fool. No matter the circumstances, she had to pay for it or Tohsaka would never take him serious enough.

"Only one of us can get a wish", he said warily.

"Since Kirei completely lacks ambition, it was always set in stone that you and I will be the winners of the Grail War."

"At least something", Joffrey said, slightly feeling better. "So I can put the wretched Stark girl to the sword?"

Tohsaka frowned.

"Not yet, your Grace. Our alliance still stands and when you two work together until the end, we should fair much easier against the others."

"Are you implying that you order me to work together with this stinking daughter of a traitor who has already raised her hand against me? I am her king and she struck at me, this is punishable by death!"

Joffrey was sure he heard a sigh from his Master, even if he tried to suppress it.

"And justice will be done, your Grace. After the fight against the other five teams is done. Right now Kirei is busy talking sense into the girl and I am sure he will be successful. We only need your word that you approve of the alliance."

"I don't approve", he snorted. "And don't make it sound like you try to order me around. I am king, I can approve and disapprove as I see fit. And I don't see how a little girl with her toothpick could possibly an addition to my cause."

The man in the red suit grimaced.

"I mean no offense, you Grace, but from my point of view, she seemed quite effective with the element of surprise on her side."

The king narrowed his eyes, anger swelling up in his belly.

"Don't dare take this as a reference again. I hadn't even quite arrived when she attacked me", Joffrey reached towards his belt and drew his sword, pointing with it at the man, trying to get a reaction of him. "I am best used taking an enemy head on. Whoever got summoned into this age, they will tremble and shatter when Widow's Wail strikes after them."

His precious sword of Valyrian steel was brimming with energy. This present of his grandfather, Lord Tywin Lannister, was not a common sword and even stood high above the other ancestral swords of Westeros. Joffrey only held it for a short time, but he was fascinated by the black steel with its red ripples from the moment he first lay his eyes on it. It even looked like death incarnate.

"I am sure they will, your Grace. But you too in your wisdom as a king must see the usefulness of using Assassin to spy out our targets", Tohsaka said soothingly. "With her gathering information and you striking forward, everything should work out splendidly."

Joffrey thought about that, but he was still unconvinced.

 _My father wouldn't have need of her. He didn't care for spying out enemies, he would just charge them head on. A real king doesn't need to listen to such a fool. Still... what is a king with only one follower?_

"Maybe I can let myself get convinced of it", Joffrey watched the relief plainly written across Tohsaka's face when he said that. "But she needs to do the one thing her father failed to do. Bend the knee. Since I am in quite a good mood for walking amongst the living again, I will do with a simple apology for now."

Tohsaka smiled warily.

"I... I think that could be arranged as soon as Kirei comes back."

 **Kariya**

Twilight was coming upon the amassed tents with the lion-banners flapping above them. The man who became Berserker marched towards one especially large tent made of red cloth together with another knight who had a black manticore on red background as his personal sigil. An angry man who had a silver dog's head on blue on his shirt left it, marching off before the two others entered. The inside of the tent was lit by candles on a table crammed with maps, books and scrolls. Kariya guessed it was the command tent. And the man in the golden armor with two lion heads attached to his shoulders must have been their leader. He could feel how much Berserker respected this golden-haired man. Both knights bowed deeply.

"M'lord", growled Berserker.

"At your service, M'lord", said the other knight.

The man looked up. His green eyes cold and calculating. Kariya shivered despite knowing all this happened quite some time ago.

"We will arrive at King's Landing at the morrow", the lord said. "Letters from Grand Maester Pycelle assure me, that we will find the gates opened. I have no intention to let it come to a siege so that the Stormlord can arrive to reap our spoils."

"Good. I already feared we'd never go fighting ourselves", Berserker grunted.

His lord with the golden whiskers glared at him. Kariya immediately realized he disapproved of him speaking out of turn. The stare itself was enough to silence him.

"There is still one business left which needs attendance", he then went on. "As soon as we dispose of the king and the rebellion ends, matters of inheritance will arise. With the crown prince's death at the Trident, the kingdom would go to his son, thus remaining in the hands of the Targaryens."

"What is our job, M'lord?", the man with the manticore asked.

"It should be simple enough for your likes. According to Pycelle, Queen Rhaella has left the city with her son, but Princess Elia still remains with Aegon and Rhaenys. As long as the children live, the realm will have pretenders cropping up for centuries to come. And since I doubt the Stormlord has the guts to get rid of them himself, you should kindly do this for him. Is my meaning clear?"

"Of course, M'lord", Berserker dipped his head and so did the knight besides him.

The setting changed. Distant screams and the smell of blood filled the air when Berserker, his companion with the red manticore and several other men sharing their sigils hurried through narrow stone corridors. Men in black chain mail and golden cloaks threw themselves against them, only to die under the blows of their swords. When Berserker passed a window, Kariya saw that they were within a castle of red stone towering over a large city. And the city itself was aflame. Tiny dots with red banners were marching through every street. They sacked the city, plundering, murdering, raping. Despite being physically somewhere else, Kariya Matou felt his heart racing.

 _What in the world do I witness here?_

"Where are the princess and her whelps?", Berserker growled when they found an old man with a flowing beard, grey robes and several long chains of many metals around his neck.

He fell to the ground, pissing himself in fear, but he had enough strength to point to nearby stairs regardless. The two knights rushed upstairs and found a locked door they easily broke out of its hinges. They found a nursery inside. A frail looking woman with olive skin and long black hair lay in a bed. A child was crying in a crib next to her and the sound gave the knight with the three hounds on his breast headaches. He and the manticore knight entered, dismissing most of the others so they could try finding their luck looting other rooms. Before they were able to do their job, a cat rushed forward and posed itself between them, hissing at the knights as if trying to defend its master. The manticore knight laughed and slashed at it with his sword which was still red with blood and viscera. Surprisingly, he missed the evading pet and cut only its ear. The remaining few soldiers snickered in amusement and the manticore knight shot them a dark glare.

The manticore knight then turned around, lunging for the cat, but it was way too fast on its way dashing outside. He tried to grab it, but his footing slipped and he fell, his heavy armor causing quite a clatter. The men-at-arms were now openly laughing and the knight's head was deep red in shame.

"Shut up!", the manticore knight hissed, slowly pushing himself off the ground.

"Stop fooling around. The girl is not here. Find her or Lord Tywin will gut you alive!", Berserker groaned.

They all nodded and together with the manticore knight, they all hurried off. The knight with the three hounds on his chest then turned around. The baby was still crying and the woman watched him approaching the crib with wide eyes.

"No, please!", she pleaded.

Kariya was inclined to agree.

 _What sick joke is this? Why do I have to see this monstrosity doing such a work?_

"Please! He is just a child, please...", her pleads turned to sobs when his massive steel gauntlets reached into the crib and raised the tiny thing into the air.

It was still very small, but already had a mop of blonde hair on his head. And was screaming in pain, his face distorted in anger about the man who took him so roughly.

"Please...", the princess sobbed one last time.

Kariya dreaded what would happen next. He tried to look away, he tried to close his eyes, but it was pointless. He had no lids to close, since he was watching the scene through the eyes of the murderer himself. He had no control about the pictures and was only voicelessly screaming that it should stop.

"You are too loud", the monstrosity said, grabbing the child by its leg and flinging it with its head against the wall.

The continuous wailing of the baby was replaced by the high-pitched scream of a mother who had just lost her child. Kariya's heart wrenched with hers when the knight then stepped towards her bed.

"What are you to call yourself a knight?", she screamed, tears flowing across her face.

"Shut your fucking mouth, woman", he growled. "You made my head ring more than this whelp of yours."

He ripped the blanked covering the bedridden woman away and grabbed at her legs, pulling her towards himself. She was screaming and crying and kicking effortlessly against his armor, but ultimately she was too frail to defend herself against his strength.

 _No, no. Stop it! You've got the child, let her alone!_ , Kariya pleaded, but the brute could never hear him.

He tore her dress with his hands and arms still covered with the blood and brains of the child he had murdered.

"I've never fucked a Dornishwoman", he told her. "Let alone a princess."

Kariya screamed in his rage, not wanting to be forced to witness another atrocity. And this time, his strange dream seemed inclined to hear his pleads. His vision blurred and he found himself watching through the visor of Berserker's helmet. In front of him stood a man with the same olive skin as the princess and similar black hair under his helmet. He found himself in the yard of the very same red keep from before, but with many spectators watching them as if it was an arena. Both were armed, Berserker with his greatsword and the other man with spear and shield and leather armor.

"Have they told you who I am?", the man demanded.

"Some dead man", the knight grunted dismissively.

"I am Oberyn Martell, a Prince of Dorne", Oberyn said, circling him. "Princess Elia was my sister."

"Who?", asked Berserker with a frown.

The man answered by darting forward. Spear and shield clashed and he threw a quick series of attacks at the giant.

"Elia Martell, Princess of Dorne", the spearman hissed. "You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children!"

The knight replied with a ponderous charge, but each strike was easily evaded by him.

"You raped her! You murdered her! You killed her children!", Oberyn screamed in rage.

"Did you come to talk or to fight?", Berserker asked in an annoyed tone, defending himself all the while.

"I came to hear you confess!"

Kariya could not help but cheer this Prince Oberyn on, despite the brute being of his own summoning. The fight went on and on. The dimwitted monstrosity getting more and more agitated while the spearman drove him across the yard. The fire was in that man. The fire of vengeance. Even the loss of his ruined shield never stopped him, he went on and on. At the end, Berserker was barely able to stand, blood leaking out of several gashes in his armor.

"Say her name!", Oberyn yelled before charging. "Elia Martell!"

He rammed his spear deep inside the brute's chest and even Kariya could feel the immense pain he suffered when he went down. It was exactly then when he woke up. Kariya's whole body was aching, sweat dripping from his brow. He threw up some blood before he managed to stand, leaning on the brick wall behind him. He had been sleeping in a dark alley like a homeless person, but it was still better than sleeping under the same roof as that vampire Zouken. Still, he rued his stubbornness every time he woke up like this, forcing himself to remind himself of what awaited him at 'home'. There he stood now however, Berserker towered next to him in his spirit form as to not drain him of his mana. He felt his hateful gaze.

"What have I done to deserve such a dreadful bastard like you…", Kariya grumbled.

 **Rin**

Rin sighed when she opened the empty bag. Choosing the clothes she would take to her grandparents was one thing, but deciding which of the magical instruments she used for her daily exercises she had to leave at home was heart wrenching. She would have preferred to take all of them… or not to leave at all. But there was no way to go around it, her father made that clear. Tohsaka Rin and her mother had to leave so that they wouldn't get caught up in this dangerous Grail War her father participated in. He always told her how it was the Tohsaka's destiny to win the Holy Grail. She believed him with all her heart, knowing how much of his life he dedicated to the world of the Magi.

"Can I help you?"

Rin winced, jumping around. She never heard anyone open the door of her room, let alone stepping inside. But she was there regardless of it all. A young girl several years older than her.

"Who are you?", she heard herself asking.

"No-", the girl attempted to say, but stopped herself with a smirk. "My name is Arya."

"You… are you one of those 'Servants'?"

"Yes", she replied. "And you must be the daughter of Tokiomi. You resemble him quite a lot."

People often told her this, but most of the time it embarrassed her when they were pointing out their likeness and praising her for her growth. The way this girl put it however made it sound like a simple fact which had nothing to do with her.

"I am Rin", she only said.

"Nice to meet you, Rin."

It were her eyes. Now it was clear what she found off the moment she saw the girl. Those eyes were empty, cold, devoid of joy. Pretty much like Kotomine even. She might have been older than Rin, but she was still a child regardless. Children shouldn't look like that. Or getting summoned by the Throne of Heroes at all.

"You are not my father's hero", she stated warily.

"No… I'm Kotomine's", she sighed and the last sentence came out with a scornful voice. "Your father got Joffrey."

Rin had the feeling she shouldn't press the matter. She turned around and proceeded to fill the bag with ingredients, stones and magical amplifiers.

"If you have nothing to do with my father, what are you doing here?", she said with her back facing to the strange girl.

"Your father and Kotomine are discussing their 'alliance'. Again…", she heard Arya say behind her. "I just went exploring the house and wondered what you are doing here."

"Leaving…", Rin groaned. "Isn't it obvious?"

Arya stepped next to her, watching her instruments with curiosity.

"What are those?"

Rin sighed. It was difficult enough for her herself to remember their weird names, so how could she explain the materials which help her train her mana-flow when charging gemstones to someone who had no experience with it?

"Just some equipment for my lessons", she replied evasively. "My father would be furious if I ever get slothful."

"So your father personally trains you magic?"

She looked up to the girl and felt how a faint smile formed on her face.

"Yes…", she said softly.

"I have not spoken to him yet. What kind of father is he?"

Rin realized this must have been the only reason Arya talked to her.

 _What does she expect me to say?_

"He is a great man", she finally said.

Their eyes were deeply locked into each other, Arya was studying Rin very attentively.

"I see", she said. "He must be very dear to you."

"Of course he is. He is my father after all!", Rin suddenly felt aggravated by her implied assumption that this stood to question. "He taught me as much as he could."

"Sure, but did he teach you because it was your sincere wish to learn?", Arya asked with a frown.

Rin tilted her head.

"He is teaching me magic! Why shouldn't I wish so? I would never miss any of it!"

"I am glad you have fun then", Arya said. "Still… he also has Kotomine as his student and I find that one irritating. Your father… what I actually wanted to ask is if he is an honorable man."

She was at least glad she shared her own feelings towards that fake priest. Rin always felt cold in his presence and sometimes thought she was the only one crept out by him. Arya feeling the same made her immediately a bit more sympathetic to her, despite her initial strangeness. But her question about him being honorable still confused her.

"Honor?", she echoed quietly. "I think so. He knows his duties to his family and to his legacy as a Magus. He would never do anything to bring shame upon himself and us."

"A good answer…", the girl nodded with an approving smile. "I will take your word that he is a good man."

"So you will take good care of him?", Rin asked Arya warily. "That he gets through this Grail War unharmed."

Her eyes didn't meet then, Arya was gazing away.

"He has Joffrey to protect him, not me", her voice now sounded strangely sad.

"But my father and Kotomine are allied. You simply have to see him through", Rin protested. "You are supposed to be a Heroic Spirit, aren't you?"

"I am. But much can happen in a war. The many-faced god claims whomever he sees fit", Arya then put on a knowing smile. "I can't guarantee anything, especially with him being cursed with Joffrey. But I believe you and your father aren't bad people. And I know the pain of having lost a father… and more. I wouldn't want you to ever share that pain. So if I see the god of many faces, I will tell him that it is not your father's day. That I can promise. I will keep an eye on him."

Despite everything, Arya's words lifted her mood. She never got as much of an offer from Kotomine, which was already weird in its own right. She really believed the words of this strange girl. Tohsaka Rin made a small bow.

"Thank you. It means very much to me."

 **Robert**

Robert Baratheon was back again, young again, fighting again. It was a great feeling. Sure, he missed his old companions in arms. The clever old Jon Arryn, mad Thoros with his flaming sword and most of all somber Ned Stark who had always been the wiser of the two. Instead he was forced to fight with that scrawny little thing who called himself Waver Velvet. He doubted the boy had ever killed before, heck Robert was pretty sure he never ever lay with a girl before. But that was nothing Robert couldn't change, he would bring him into shape and make a man out of him, he promised this to himself. Until then he had to explore this strange new world of his.

This boy who had summoned him brought him to a tiny house at the edge of the city. He had advised him not to behave too loudly and explained that he was living with an old couple and they were likely sleeping at the time they returned. They were not his real relatives, but he made them believe he was their grandchild with some magic trick of his. Robert found it odd and wondered how this easily flustered young lad could delve into such malicious dark magic. He doubted the boy could harm a fly.

"I had not much choice", he replied looking miserably. "I have not much money and have nobody else to rely on. These people here are also the only British people I found where my being here would not raise suspicions."

"Still… using such low tricks to gain the protection of their hospitality doesn't seem right."

At least the boy had enough decency to look properly ashamed at that notion. He had let him to his room directly under the roof, bubbling excuses about it being so tiny and that Robert as a king was likely unaccustomed to it. Especially as a king of his proportions. Robert thought grimly about the proportions he had near the end of his life, but decided not to ponder on that. It was a fun adventure for him all the same and having a solid roof above his head was already more luxury than the hardships of the two real wars he had faced in his lifetime.

 _Seven warriors, that's a skirmish, not a war!_

Now he was seating himself on the ground in front of his Master who preferred to sit at the edge of his bed.

"So boy, you have surely been studying the battlefield before you summoned me, so what are your plans?"

Robert's young ally seemed strangely taken aback by that.

"Plans?", Waver looked at him nervously.

"Well, you entered this contest in order to win, didn't you? So you must have thought up some strategy how we should fight", Robert explained with a frown. "Yeah, I know. I am not the king you expected, but you must have thought up something?"

The boy scratched the back of his head sheepishly, red blood rose to his cheeks, making him look like a tomato.

"To be absolutely honest, just entering the Grail War at all by successfully summoning a Servant was pretty much as far as I wanted to get. I thought I could come up with something after I successfully summoned you."

Robert crossed his arms in thought.

"Mmh… well, that might be excusable. It's not like we have a real war to plan. It's just me and six other heroes. I tell you how I see it, boy: Just point at the enemy we should try to take on first and I'll do the rest."

"I… I see. I might need to do some scouting, let's see what the other teams are going to do first. Most of them don't even seem to have already appeared in Fuyuki", Waver proposed carefully.

"But you know who is, then?"

The boy grimaced and went to a cupboard nearby, taking out several photos he seemed to have made in advance to his summoning.

"There are three founding members of the Grail ritual. Tohsaka, Einzbern and Matou. Since I thought their participation was pretty much a given, I had sent my own familiars to their residences to keep them under surveillance."

"Sounds prudent enough, lad", Robert replied, giving him an acknowledging pat on his shoulder when he lay the three photos on the ground between them.

"The first one here is the Einzbern residence."

Robert frowned. It looked like a castle in the woods, but it completely lacked any sensible defensive measures. Sure enough, any castle pales in comparison to mighty Storm's End or the impregnable Eyrie he had spent his childhood in. But his honed combat instincts told him holding this particular kind of castle would have been complete folly, no matter the numbers of the defenders.

"It is completely vacant at the moment", Waver explained. "Maybe they are not here yet. They are a house of Magi from Germany after all."

Robert nodded and looked to the next photo, a large and gloomy residence inside the city.

"This is the Matou household. I'm afraid this one already has a Servant", Robert grinned, but Waver shook his head dismissively. "He fled the building last night and I've lost track of him after my familiar was killed by some weird looking flying insect."

"What a shame…", the knight grumbled then.

The last one was also a large residence with a huge, well cared garden in front of it.

"The Tohsaka residence. The family of that man left the building today, but the patriarch himself is still in there. I suppose he is making his preparations or already has a Servant."

The king couldn't help but smile. This was it.

"Ah, that's how it is… I know what to do! Let's do it like Summerhall then", his smile turned to a grin when he remembered the blood and the glory of that day.

"Summerhall?", his Master seemed not to know what had happened there.

Robert didn't wonder about that. He had already learned that this place, Earth, had no idea of the existence of Westeros. This world was completely alien to him, so he himself must have looked completely alien to that young boy too. He leaned forward when he began to tell his story.

"Well, Summerhall was a series of battles I had fought. It was pretty much the first engagement of what would be later called 'Robert's Rebellion'."

"Okay…", he looked at him rather confused, but still listened.

"That was how I got my crown. Well… not that I wanted that thrice damned piece of scraps anyway. I wanted the girl instead. My betrothed who was abducted by that silver-haired bastard Rhaegar, the crown prince. It all went downhill from there. His father, the mad king Aerys also murdered her oldest brother and father and demanded the heads of me and my dear friend Ned, who was another of her brothers and next Lord of Winterfell after the murder of his relatives."

Waver gulped, but aside from that he got no reaction from him.

"It's not like we were eager to go to the capital like sheep to the butcher. Not without armies at our backs. So Ned went to his lordship and I to mine. Summerhall happened shortly after I had arrived at my castle of Storm's End and called my banners. There were several of my vassals who refused my request and sided with the Targaryen bastard in faint hopes that he would reward them for it. They had gathered three separate hosts and wanted to meet up at Summerhall. Look, I had barely arrived and my loyal vassals were not even ready. If I had hesitated, Storm's End soon would have been under siege by their combined strength before I even had been able to gather my own forces. So I took the garrison of Storm's End and whatever men-at-arms I was able to scrap together and met them in the field."

"So… you say you just attacked immediately, without waiting for reinforcements?"

"Exactly!", Robert grinned, appreciating that he was paying attention. "Only two of the hosts combined would have been enough to overwhelm me, so few were my numbers. That's why I had to take them early on before they were able to form their alliance. First I took on the host of the Fell's. They were on the march and had no idea what was coming to them. Lord Fell himself fought valiantly, I should know since I was the one who killed him with that hammer of mine. Then came Lord Cafferen and his bunch. The last ones were the troops of Lord Grandison who waited at Summerhall itself, waiting for the other two hosts who never arrived. Might be they at first thought we were their reinforcements, until they've seen my stag banners and shat into their breeches. They had set up camp amidst the ruins of the old castle and we just swept through their defenses as if they weren't even there."

"You took out all three…"

"… on one fucking day! We never paused, I pushed my men hard forward, threatening to take the hands off every soldier who stopped to take loot. Time was of the essence back then! We got the buggers only because we struck immediately before they were able to join forces."

"So what do you want to do?"

Robert chuckled, grabbing the photo of the Tohsaka residence and holding it right in front of the nose of his Master.

"I say we two are going to surprise them, roll up the field before anyone can act! And this is our first target…"

Waver seemed aghast when the knight in yellow stood up and went to the door.

"What? You mean like now?"

Robert blinked.

"When else? The night is young and we know where the enemy is! Let's go take the battle to them and see how they are prepared to that!"

He had to admit this was the best way. He couldn't just sit on his ass and wait for the others to make their moves. He had to strike at once. Robert took the boy by his shoulder and tapped him encouragingly.

"Come on, boy! You wanted to participate in this battle because you want to win it. And I have promised you that I'm going to get that pretty cup for us."

The boy looked scared out of his mind, but simply had to follow when Robert strolled out of the door. He would show him how true battles are to be fought! And most of all, the promise of his beloved Lyanna awaited him in that residence…


	3. Chapter 3 - The first Blood

Chapter 3 – The first Blood

 **Tokiomi**

This evening Tokiomi Tohsaka sat in his solar and stared silently at the glass of red wine in front of him. He somehow had lost the taste for it. All his hopes for an easy victory in this Grail War had vanished together with Gilgamesh. Instead he and Kirei had been reduced to guardians of two kids. Kids who hated each other with a loathing. It had cost the whole day and lots and lots of compromises to not let them abandon the alliance where it was. Shortly after Aoi and Rin left Kirei had managed to get a breakthrough with the girl. She refused the apology, but at least she agreed to stay for the night instead of fleeing from him. Kirei grudgingly admitted that this change of mind was not due to any of his arguments, but from an initiative of the girl herself, but Tokiomi was happy with it all the same. It bought him one more day to reconcile these two stubborn children.

"What the-", he gasped.

He felt a sudden sting in his chest, a sensation caused by the outward defenses of his house. It should have been just a tickle for him to sense a trespassing, but the way he felt it the whole mechanism must have been completely erased with a brutality no Magus known to him would have been able to cause. He rose from his chair and at the very same moment Archer materialized next to him, his usual smug look on his face.

"It seems your pitiful defense has been thoroughly wrecked, Tohsaka", he said mockingly. "My first kill is on its way to me."

"Impossible", Tokiomi heard himself say. "Who would be foolish enough to be so open about it all?"

 _Not to mention all the traps I have set. Even the most powerful Magus should be thrice dead the second he steps onto the grass._

"A Servant who is able to simply wade through your pathetic little firecrackers with ease, as it seems", Joffrey chuckled. "But don't worry. I will intercept him in the foyer."

With these words the young king vanished in a golden mist and Tokiomi darted outside. He rejoined with his Servant atop the steps to the first floor. He had already buckled his crossbow and aimed at the entrance door.

"Just step back and watch how a true king handles such a situation!", Joffrey boasted.

Tokiomi had no choice but to obey. He stood there and looked down into the foyer. For a second it seemed as peaceful as ever. Nothing made it look like they were under siege, but he could feel how his layered defenses were cut like an onion. And fast…

"Stoooooorm's Eeeeend!", a deep voice called out from the outside, rough and loud and brutally.

The door of the entrance was not smashed in, as Tokiomi would have expected. Not only. It basically exploded and took a large chunk of the surrounding wall with it. Splinters and shrapnel were thrown into the foyer while a tall knight on a giant black warhorse galloped through dust clouds and debris, warhammer and yellow shield in his hands. He had an antlered helmet and a black stag on yellow was depicted on shield and surcoat. A truly terrifying warrior, one of a caliber Tokiomi had hoped to get himself. It took him a few precious seconds until he saw the Master of that impressive Servant, a young boy sitting behind the knight, desperately clutching at the man's chest with closed eyes. Joffrey reacted soon thereafter. He shot his crossbow and a golden beam of energy bolted towards the enemy. The knight however simply raised his shield and the resulting explosion when it was struck left him pretty much completely unharmed.

 _Who is pathetic now…_ , Tokiomi thought grumbling.

The knight below wasted no time. He drove his spurs into the side of his horse, the animal whinnied and tensed and jumped. It was so powerful its hind legs dug deeply into the ground below before the animal leapt into the air. Tokiomi just stared at them in disbelieve. How all three, horse, rider and pitifully screaming boy arrived at their floor and came crashing through the banister. Joffrey was so focused on frantically knocking a second bolt into his crossbow, he completely forgot to escape from their path of destruction. When the boy finally looked up, he looked directly into a hoof aiming at his face. Tokiomi heard a sickening crunch and the very next moment his Servant was ridden down, screaming in pain and rolling on the ground, holding his face with the horse coming to a trot above him.

 _So much for my participation in the fourth Grail War…_

The knight disentangled himself from the grip of his shivering young Master who exchanged clutching to his Servant with clutching to the back of the horse he was sitting on after Rider had dismounted. Archer meanwhile struggled to his feet, drawing Widow's Wail in fury.

"How dare you let your stinking horse touch me!", he demanded, his voice becoming a high-pitched shriek that made him sound like the boy he was. "You will pay for your impertinence!"

The enemy knight turned towards him, raising his hammer threatening to strike him down. Tokiomi had no delusions that this far superior Heroic Spirit would make short work out of his one. Archer himself looked scared out of his mind. But the knight hesitated in the middle of swinging his murderous weapon.

"Joff?", he asked back in confusion.

Archer was taken aback.

"How did you call me?", Archer seemed as startled as his opponent.

Rider ripped his antlered helmet from his head. A head with pitch-black hair and a striking beard of the same color appeared under it.

"It can't be, what in the seven hells are you doing here?"

Joffrey's eyes widened in recognition.

"Father!", he called out.

Before Tokiomi was able to properly process the implications of these words a black shadow rushed past him. It was Kirei's girl who jumped at the armored giant with her thin little rapier. Rider however reacted fast, whirled around and greeted her with a strike that shattered the floor beneath her. Assassin however evaded that one effortlessly and closed in, only to hesitate the same way Rider had hesitated shortly before.

"Gendry?", she asked aghast.

Rider frowned.

"Gendry?", he echoed absentmindedly while reeling in his giant hammer. "Huh, I haven't heard that name for quite a while. Who are you, little one?"

Joffrey behind him laughed out loud.

"I can't blame you for not remembering that ugly face of hers", he stated amused. "It's the stinking wolf girl!"

"You shut up!", the girl hissed.

Rider meanwhile went to his knees, gaping at the girl with an open mouth.

"Oh… you are Ned's little girl! You are Arya!"

"If you are not Gendry, where do you know me from?", Assassin asked with an irritated tone.

"Don't tell me you can't recognize your own king when he stands in front of you", Joffrey interjected derisively.

"I thought _you_ are the king", she shot back mockingly. "You kept reminding me the whole bloody day."

Joffrey grimaced, seemingly trying to wrap his head around who was now of higher rank with his father also being summoned into the present day. But it seemed to have dawned to Assassin as well when she turned back to Rider.

"Now I recall! You are the fat king!", the girl blurted out.

Tokiomi was afraid how this antlered knight would react, but especially the golden prince was aghast.

"You speak with my father", he protested. "Mind your tongue!"

Rider however just blinked a few times in confusion before a broad grin appeared under his beard and the Tohsaka residence was soon filled with booming laughter. Joffrey was as irritated by that reaction as Tokiomi was.

"Father?"

"Hah, I can't help it. She is right, I was by all means not in my best shape, you simply have to admit."

Meanwhile Kirei had stepped next to Tokiomi and even though he spoke no word, being afraid to interrupt the talking Servants, he shot his mentor an exasperated glance. The Magus could not help it, the only reaction that could possibly convey what he felt in that moment was a resigned shrug of his shoulders. The attacking Rider had seated himself on the floor with the two children standing in front of him. Joffrey had sheathed his sword while the girl seemed still wary and just kept her weapon low. In the background Rider's young Master was still clutching onto the bored looking horse, completely ignoring what was happening below.

"Pray tell me, what are you two doing here?", Rider asked.

"What does it look like to you, father? Of course we are fighting for the Grail!", the young boy replied smugly.

The armored giant seemed torn apart by both joy and sorrow.

"So you two managed to become Heroic Spirits?", he said with wide eyes.

"Of course I did", Joffrey stated. "I saved my city at the Battle of Blackwater! It is beyond me how this girl managed to qualify though…"

"You won a battle?", Rider raised his black eyebrows. "Well, that's… good, I guess. Seems you're trying to be my son after all."

Even Tokiomi could feel the blow Archer must have felt. The boy's proud smile flickered and anger flared up in his eyes, an anger he had no way to get rid of. But he had no chance to reply, because the large knight was already raising again, a heavy and weary sigh on his lips.

"Ah… this is not good. Not good at all…", he grumbled and shuffled back to his horse.

The two children watched him retreating in silence.

"Is… is the fight already over?", Rider's equally confused Master squeaked.

"There won't be a fight", his Servant snapped. "Just look at them! Fuck the Grail, they are children!"

The boy looked at both of them warily, especially at the scrawny girl who had her sword still drawn. But he never said a word of reproach. Rider meanwhile looked at the two visibly distressed when he explained further.

"I came expecting a battle between mighty warriors from across time and space. Instead I've found my own son and the daughter of my best friend. Bloody hells, the Grail cannot expect me to kill them! You cannot ask such a thing from me! Nobody can…", he sighed again, long and close to despair. "Not even Lyanna… This bloody Grail of yours has one sick sense of humor. Move!"

He waved at his young Master and the boy climbed a bit away to make room for his Servant. And the tall knight easily swung himself back onto his saddle.

"Bloody hells, this kills all the fun", he grumbled, letting the horse turn around so that it was able to slowly climb the steps downwards.

He looked back and it seemed he only then realized Tokiomi and Kirei who had watched the whole scene.

"My pardons for the door by the way…", the knight said on his way out.

Tokiomi sighed to himself as soon as the intruders were outside. It definitely was not the start into the Grail War he had initially imagined. And he also had no idea how he would be able to use this newly gained information to his advantage.

 _The father of my own Servant… this is going to get complicated._

Only then he realized Kirei was still as tense as before, not daring to lower his guard. He frowned, wanting to ask what he was doing, but he got his answer when Kirei summoned a single Black Key, one of his magical throwing swords, and whirled around. Tokiomi did the same and watched how his apprentice targeted something near the ceiling behind them and threw his weapon at it in one superhumanly swift motion. Pinned and dying, it was a hideously creature twitching with its legs and wings. A pale white insect, grown to this size only through the help of strong magic.

"It seems we were not the only witnesses of what had happened here", Kirei stated matter-of-factly.

"This is Matou magic…", Tokiomi replied. "I hadn't expected Zouken to be that careless…"

 _And I thought it hadn't already become complicated enough…_

 **Kariya**

Somewhere in a distant alley Kariya's spirit returned to his aching body. Having watched the entire far too short brawl through the eyes of his familiar, he could not help but smile viciously.

"Fortune smiles upon us, Berserker", he told the giant who towered over him in his Spirit Form. "Tohsaka has drawn the shortest possible straw!"

 _We can do it. This cruel bastard Zouken gave me should be able to make short work of Tokiomi's Servant._

Taking out Tohsaka and rubbing into his face that the renowned Magus was defeated by an outsider without magic training was a sweet thought to Kariya. There was still something he didn't like about it though… Tohsaka was not alone. He was obviously in an alliance with that weird fake priest and this girl Servant of his. The Servant seemed not much of a threat, but the casual way the man had dispatched his familiar made him wary.

 _The competition in this Grail War likely will get more serious than Tokiomi. I will have to watch… for now… but I will be the one to defeat Tokiomi, that's for sure… I will come for him when the time is right._

 **Jaime**

The knight of the Kingsuard watched the clouds beneath him in wonder. The airplane was soon going to arrive at Fuyuki city, so he knew his trip through the sky was soon going to end and he wanted to soak these pictures in as much as possible.

"You seem to really enjoy our ride", Irisviel next to him stated.

He turned back to her. The slender woman with the silver-white hair and red eyes still awfully reminded him of a certain someone. A person he had failed to protect.

 _She had purple eyes, not red…_

The colors were all wrong, he realized. She didn't wore the Targaryen black, he didn't wore the white of the Kingsguard. She had bought him a stylish black suit instead. He had argued against it, but she insisted white wouldn't do since in the country they were entering white suits were meaning death. People would get the wrong impression, she had said. He countered why she preferred white outfits then, whereas she just claimed it would likely not look as weird for a woman to wear white, especially since she wore a dress, not a suit. Jaime stopped arguing then and kept his mouth shut, even though he suspected Kiritsugu's innocent little flower simply had her fun fitting him out with clothing.

"The sky from above is indeed a rare sight for me to behold", he replied. "But may I ask whether this way of travel truly is in the interest of your spouse? I am less of a strain to his mana if I travel in Spirit Form."

"Ah, you don't need to worry about that, Ser Jaime", she replied with a warm smile. "Isn't it more fun this way? I am sure Kiritsugu has no objections."

"If you say so…"

He had to admit, travelling with her in his corporeal form was indeed more fun. Guarding his Master's wife while he arrived in the country on a separate way. He was a knight of the Kingsguard, she a lovely woman raised in a castle. A blind idiot could see the poetry in that. Jaime Lannister himself was doing what he had always expected a true knight to do. Protect, be chivalrous, be a shadow to his Master. Escorting Irisviel had proved to be a pleasant task. And Kiritsugu might have been a hard man, but at least he had clear-cut aims. A goal more noble than everything Jaime had ever heard from all his previous employers, even though a bit too desperate for his liking. If this 'Grail War' business would go on like this, Jaime was sure it could become a pleasant adventure for him.

"For me it is also the first flight", Irisviel said cheerfully. "So it is a new experience for us both."

"I admit, if flying would be so easy in my world, I would do it any time. Even the Targaryen dragonriders of old must have never experienced so comfortable a flight."

 _And airplanes also aren't prone to burn a man alive…_

Even saying it made him feel weird. Sitting in this wonder of Earth technology cruising through the clouds made speaking of his own world sound antiquated. Talking about dragons also brought up a horrible memory of a black shadow over King's Landing. He didn't want to think about this day which was his last one. Not when he had to show himself from his best side. After a short glimpse out of the window he turned his attention back to his charge.

"I hope you also find your trip pleasant enough, your Grace."

"Your Grace?", she was obviously too polite to mock him for his choice of words, but her irritation was clear to see.

"My pardons… old habits don't die easily", Jaime explained grimacing.

"You have never called Kiritsugu 'your Grace'. I might not have all that much experience with human interactions, but I do see that you behave differently in my presence."

"Do I?"

She didn't reply to that, she only looked at him attentively. Jaime realized he was being cornered and she wouldn't let go of him easily. He gave a resigned sigh.

"It's just… you remind me of someone. It's nothing important, really."

Instead she leaned closer, in his attempt to evade the subject he had only further inflamed her curiosity.

"Someone of your past life? Who was she?"

"A queen…", he said reluctantly. "Please, it is an ugly story. Definitely not a story you tell a maiden."

A mischievous smile crept up on her face.

"You have met my daughter. You must know I am not exactly a maiden anymore, whatever that has to do with your story anyway."

"But you are innocent enough to pass for one", Jaime countered with sincere concern.

Her eyebrows raised, her red eyes staring at him in confusion. It seemed Iri was at loss for words then. She leaned back into her seat and silence swallowed the atmosphere between them. Jaime felt bad for making the conversation uncomfortable, but he thought it better for the moment. Though he wasn't entirely sure whether he was trying to spare Iri from a gruesome story or himself from remembering it. Sighing, he returned to the window and stared onto the clouds, wondering why they had lost a bit of color all of a sudden.

The rest of the flight went rather smoothly and soon enough the atmosphere cooled down enough so that Iri was able to pay no mind to the ugly topic he had accidentally brought forth. Jaime held his tongue from now on, much like a proper Kingsguard should do. He watched attentively when the steel dragon landed on the ground and he escorted his charge through the airport with all due courtesy. A job that could have been easier, if they hadn't drawn the attention of pretty much everyone onto them. Stares followed them through the entire building. Stares neither he nor Irisviel were responsible for, but rather the three homunculi-servants which were following them in archaic maid attire.

"I could have brought my armor and we wouldn't get much more attention", Jaime whispered glumly to Iri.

"I somehow doubt that", she replied with an appeasing voice to which he found no better answer than to shrug.

At least they were safe when they reached the cars that waited in front of the airport. They got rid of the soulless handmaidens with the dull eyes which made the knight slightly uneasy and they were able to hide behind the tinted windscreen which seemed to be the earthen equivalent of a private litter. Of course Jaime felt it would have been more appropriate to escort that from the outside, but different times asked for different means. And so he found himself forced to sit on the backseat right next to Irisviel again. Soon enough the roles were reversed. Now it was him who watched her gazing out of the window. The trip from the airport to the city the Grail War would take place in didn't take them all that much time. They passed the idyllic countryside and entered Fuyuki from the east.

 _How many miles have we passed in just half an hour? I could find a liking to this kind of travel..._

Jaime had already made himself familiar with the city since Kiritsugu gave him some maps to brood over. A useful gesture if the Grail War would have been an actual war and they would have been planning an assault, but alas without an army it was more an act of curiosity for them. Jaime knew that the district they had entered was called Shinto, but seeing it in three dimensions was a different experience. Shinto was the 'modern' part of town in every sense of the word. The tall business buildings made of steel, glass and concrete were lining up around the main street and young people were going after their businesses below.

 _I also could find a liking to cities you don't smell from miles away..._

"What a lively place", Irisviel said after a while to break the silence.

"Lively? Well, I guess you may call it like that. But this town has the mood of a funeral compared to Fishmonger's Square on a market day", Jaime chuckled, only then realizing that his companion was in need of an explanation for the analogy. "Just imagine hundreds and hundreds of sweating angry peasants shoving each other through the muddy streets. You hear the foul shouts of the market criers... and smell the scent of their even fouler wares. Then there are the laughing little children bustling between your legs, half of them trying to pick your pocket... The sound of the smithies echoes down from the Street of Steel, you hear the gossip of the washerwomen, the bawdy shouts of the whores from upstairs and the cursing of the laborers. And all that accompanied by the stink of half a million unwashed people. That's King's Landing for you."

He smiled at her grimly. It was a weird feeling he had then. He always hated it in that cursed hive of scum and treachery, but reminiscing about it like this... it didn't make the memory better, but sitting in an air-conditioned car, talking to a lady who has likely never lived in a place lacking any kind of modern sanitation, King's Landing felt distant. Like something out of a dream. It was all the more weird for Jaime considering that from his point of view he had left that world and with it that city only a few days ago.

 _If I start to miss it, make sure to shoot me, Kiritsugu..._

"Sounds like... a very interesting place...", Irisviel commented with a weak smile.

"Not really...", Jaime replied with a sigh.

She looked down after that dismissal, fidgeting nervously with her fingers in her lap.

"I... I guess I am not one to judge. I think that's what you meant before."

Jaime frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"What you said... about me being like a maiden. Yes... I do lack experience. And I have so little time left... Say, Saber, what about going for a walk? I may not be able to see your King's Landing, but at least I can enjoy this Fuyuki to the fullest."

The Kingsguard knight felt uneasy. There was pain in her voice and he could barely grasp what this pain was about.

"Time left...", Jaime echoed incredulously. "Are we talking about the war here?"

She hesitated, her expression wavering. For some reason the air felt as if it just went a few degrees colder.

"Yes... in a way", she finally replied.

"How so?", the knight asked. "It may be right that we just have a few days before the fighting starts, but..."

"Kiritsugu didn't tell you?", she then asked with a sad smile.

"Told what? You know how tight-lipped that bastard can be."

"Don't judge him so harshly, he likely thought it is easier for you this way."

 _Easier what?_

Jaime never liked it when people talked in riddles. Sure, he had his fair share of stories he wasn't so keen on telling, but at least he did his best not to bring them up in the first place. That's why Jaime raised his hands and gestured that he had no idea what she was talking about. Irisviel saw it, but averted his eyes then.

"It's just... I was born with one purpose in mind. To... to claim the grail. Grandfather never thought it necessary for me to learn about the world."

"So this is the first time you left the castle?", Jaime realized with slight irritation.

Irisviel nodded, a sad smile on her face.

 _Come to think of it, it isn't all that uncommon where I come from, is it? Many people die in the same tiny village they are born in without ever venturing as far as the next city. And highborn girls often leave their birthplace only at the time their parents are marrying them off into some other castle a couple of miles down the road where they are staying for the rest of their lives._

Therefore it was not something all that strange to him. It meant this Fuyuki was for her as much an adventure as it was for him. He would have gladly escorted her through the city if it was just this she was bothering about... but there was something else. Jaime sensed that there was something off about the whole affair. Being raised in a golden cage was nothing unusual, especially when the world outside was not all that of a nice place to explore. But being born with a purpose more specific than continuing a name...

"What's that about claiming the Grail? Kiritsugu is the Master. As far as I understand he doesn't need you to achieve victory."

"This is not quite correct. He can indeed win on his own, but he can't claim the Grail without me", she explained and all the while her nervous fidgeting further increased.

"I'm sorry, I can't really follow you. I thought I just cut my way through six poor fellows and that's it."

Irisviel shook her head and her grave expression sent a sense of dread through the knight. There was more to the Grail War than the dueling and the wish-fulfilling Jaime was invited with.

 _Let's just say she was part of the deal._

Kiritsugu's words rang threateningly in his head.

"What is it?", he urged sternly. "What is your role in this sick game?"

She hesitated again, she was looking as if she would have preferred to flee the car instead of answering.

"I... you must know that I am the Grail", she finally said.

"Nonsense", Jaime commented, further deepening his frown. "How can a person be a cup?"

"How can a cup grant wishes?", she shot back, her smile turning to bitter mockery.

 _Well played._

"Fine, your point. But my question remains."

"But it is all you need to know. You will have to prevail against your enemies and when the time comes, the Grail will manifest. And to manifest... it needs a vessel. Something to give it shape. Something to anchor it in our material world."

Her strained voice made no mystery out of it that there was more to it.

"So you are saying that _you_ are this certain something? Let's say we manage to successfully anchor it... what happens to you then?"

"At this point... there is only the Grail then. The being you call Irisviel has stopped to exist then."

These words were followed by a long stretch of silence. Jaime swallowed. Jaime blinked. And Jaime finally realized what he got himself into. Irisviel spoke with conviction, but it was the conviction of a sheep blissfully walking towards the butcher. It was simply insane. And it was insane that Kiritsugu knew of it... and willfully accepted this fate for his dutiful wife.

 _And to think that this bastard is also using her as a decoy master... Come to think of it, he must have arrived a couple of hours ago._

"Stop the car!", he called out to their driver, barely containing the anger boiling up in his chest.

The servant of the Einzbern clan reacted immediately, leaving the road for the nearest place to park at the sidewalk. Irisviel was startled by his sudden action, sprouting excuses about this being the purpose of her life. Jaime didn't want to hear any of it. When he opened the door and stepped outside, his thoughts were already circling around his next moves.

 _It's a shame I don't know the hotel he is staying at, but I think there is another way._

He walked around the car onto the sidewalk, only to close his eyes before doing any step further away.

 _I'm now a bloody ghost, so I could make use of that, right?_

He concentrated deeply, focusing his mind on... something inside of him. Jaime was unable to put it into words, but he knew that there was some kind of weird magical connection between him and the grumpy ex-hitman. This connection was supposed to keep him rooted in this world despite all evidence suggesting that he should be very much dead instead. Being a ghost does that to people. But luckily he was also able to use this connection to track down his Master... or at least to get a hang of the general direction he needed to look at.

 _It must be my day. He is closer than expected... somewhere here in Shinto._

With these thoughts on his mind Jaime Lannister opened his eyes again, knowing where he needed to go. He opened the door of the car with a dramatic gesture. Irisviel inside stared at him with wide eyes.

"What are you doing, Saber?", she asked incredulously.

"Milady wanted to see the city", he held out his hand with his most mischievous smile. "Let's go out for a little walk then."

 **Arya**

Arya Stark watched with a worried expression how Kirei Kotomine was packing his traveling bag. With them all living in the same mansion and especially with Joffrey roaming the house, there were not many places Arya could go to and so she was spending the morning with her weird summoner. Watching him like this made her remembering the previous day when she had sent off the girl who used to live in the mansion as well. The mood with Rin wasn't quite so gloomy though.

"You don't have to go, you know", she said to break the silence.

Kotomine stopped packing and instead glanced at her, his expression seemed thoughtful.

"How ironic for you to say that, girl. I'm just heeding your advice after all."

Arya nodded, a sad smile on her lips.

"Well, I told you how useless Joffrey is."

"You did indeed. And I saw the truth of your words yesterday with Rider's assault."

"So you do intend to break your alliance with Tohsaka?"

Kotomine looked back into his bag, but did not continue with his packing. He sighed.

"I don't know what I intend."

"You're strange", Arya commented.

"Tokiomi is my mentor", Kotomine said strongly. "I am not supposed break my alliance, but I cannot sit idly here and wait for the enemy to strike again. I cannot fight like that. And you cannot fight like this as well."

Arya saw his point. But she didn't like it. And it was all the more startling since she wasn't even quite sure why she cared in the first place. Kotomine must have read her thoughts, since he turned back to her.

"You never told me why you changed your mind", it was more a statement than in inquiry, but Arya still felt like it was aimed at her.

She didn't answer. The reason was simple: She herself wasn't quite sure why she cared for Tokiomi in the first place. The only thing that had changed was that she met his daughter. And the moment she realized that the girl was caught up in this war which was not hers, she felt pity. It was just unfair that she had to suffer for the selfish games her father was playing. She could have told that to Kotomine, but for some reason she assumed he would not be able to understand.

"You already know where to go?", Arya asked after a moment of silence. "Since your initial plan failed, the church is out of the question."

The fake priest sighed and went back to his packing.

"There is a small hostel at the edge of Miyama I can use", Kirei explained icily. "We can meet up there today evening for further planning."

Arya realized there was something he wanted her to do.

"What is my task?"

Kotomine went straight to the matter.

"There were three familiars watching the fight. Adding the Master of Rider to it, we have four witnesses of Tokiomi's pathetic Servant. There may have been a fifth that is still unaware, but not for long I suspect. I want you to patrol the city, gather information about their intentions. I want to know whether they plan to attack right away or not."

He finished packing and stared at the closed bag. before taking seat at the edge of his bed. Arya knew this job was something she could do, but she still wasn't very keen to leave. Tokiomi's cause was lost and she suspected Kotomine wanted to use him as bait, which would make keeping him alive much more difficult.

 _It would be easier if I could reduce the number of combatants._

"If I see an opportunity, do I have your leave to strike?", she asked after some consideration.

"No. Keep your head down. I just want you to scout for me", the priest replied immediately. "And focus especially on the Matou Master. Zouken's pawn was unexpectedly bold. Something is telling me there is more to it than mere curiosity."

"Don't worry, I can focus on all Masters for you", Arya replied with some measure of pride.

Kirei frowned about her notion.

"How?"

Arya couldn't help but smirk. Being paired off together with the priest might have reminded her of the House of Black and White, but it not only reminded her of the dread, it reminded her of her small victories as well.

"You have your mysteries, I have mine", she answered truthfully. "Let's just say I have more eyes than those two in my head."


	4. Chapter 4 - Sacrifice

Welcome back! I actually intended to post this chapter after the next one of "The Einzbern Grail War". That one is still not quite finished, but I'm in a good mood today (which likely has also something to do with my decision to skip Game of Thrones, thinking that life is too short...). Now here we are, just where we left Fuyuki the last time...

* * *

Chapter 4 - Sacrifice

 **Jaime**

After the first couple of hundred meters the knight of the Kingsguard started to feel bad about having dragged Irisviel along. She wanted to enjoy the city and being among people, but instead he guided them on a straight line through back alleys and run down apartment blocks. But the knight of the Kingsguard also knew that he simply needed to make sure there were no further secrets between him and his Master. The last one felt like quite a betrayal despite all of Irisviel's claims to the opposite.

 _Got you!_

After some amount of travel the odd couple of lady and knight finally arrived at a tall hotel building which was in a startling state of disrepair. It was just like Kiritsugu to keep a low profile by living here instead of using the filthy rich Einzbern's money to get a proper inn. Upon entering Jaime didn't even bother to ask the reception, the mana flow between him and the magus killer was enough a trace for him to pin down his floor and his room on his own. The knight in the expensive suit and the silver-haired flower still drew the attention of both the receptionist and her surprised looking cat upon themselves as they entered the elevator.

 _There you are... room 703._

He felt the presence of Kiritsugu behind that door. There was nowhere to run for him. He looked at Irisviel with a smile containing triumph and mischief at once. She wasn't quite so eager, her reaction looked pleading to him. But for the knight there was no way to turn back. He knocked at the door. There was no reply. Jaime held his ear close, but he couldn't hear a thing. There was total silence inside. Despite that, his gut feeling told him the squinty-eyed bastard was still in there.

"Room service!", the knight shouted with impatience.

There was still no reply. And there was still a suffocating silence on the other side. But...

 _Bloody bastard!_

With terror Jaime realized that the presence of Kiritsugu vanished... and its distance grew fast.

 _He must have taken the window!_

He watched to the corridor on his left. There was an emergency exit leading to stairs on the outside. Kiritsugu had most likely jumped towards them to escape. There was no time to waste. He left Iri at the door and left through the emergency exit with all haste. Having arrived outside, he looked down and saw two figures in black running towards a car parked nearby. Jaime realized that he had no way to reach them before they escaped... at least with conventional means.

 _Seven hells, Kingslayer, don't forget you can now piss on the laws of physics..._

After grimacing and internally admonishing himself for his forgetfulness, Jaime switched into Spirit Form. As a ghost he was not only invisible, but also didn't need to stick to walking. He closed the distance with mindblowing speed, half jumping half gliding through the air. Somewhere on the ground he saw how one of the figures had already jumped into the car, the other one was luckily Kiritsugu who was just in this moment opening the door of the co-driver seat. Jaime didn't allow that to happen. He materialized directly next to him, slamming the door shut. The hitman stepped away and looked into the viciously smiling face of the knight. Jaime was more amused by his Master's attempt at pretending to be unsurprised than he could say.

"Saber?", he simply said, only slightly lowering his guard.

"The very same", Jaime smirked. "What a coincidence to meet here of all places."

"Where is Iri?", he asked with a frown so hard Stannis would be jealous.

 _Worried, are you?_

Jaime looked back at the hotel and Kiritsugu followed his gaze to the stairs of the emergency exit. Above them a silver-haired figure stood, watching the two men warily. Jaime waved at her, but when he turned back to Kiritsugu he saw that the man had already looked away. He was focused on some little plastic device in his hands.

"What is that about?"

"I'm just disarming the explosives in the room", Kiritsugu replied matter-of-factly.

It took the Kingsguard a couple of seconds to realize the meaning behind his Master's words. In his mind he saw the picture of a fiery nightmare in a way not unlike Wildfire flashing up.

"You can't be serious", Jaime laughed, but his laugh sounded more nervous than he liked.

The utterly serious look Kiritsugu shot him was answer enough for him. Jaime felt at a loss for words.

"What if we had _been_ the room service?", he asked incredulously.

"Maiya specifically asked the staff not to bother us", Kiritsugu replied, waving towards the person who still sat behind the driver's wheel, waiting surprisingly patiently for their conversation to end.

"Mistakes happen!", Jaime objected.

"Better safe than sorry. I am not one to take chances", his answer was as immediate as it was blunt.

Jaime knew what it meant to be cautious, but this was simply ridiculous. While the knight was still busy struggling for words Kiritsugu gestured towards his partner and she wordlessly left the car to join them.

"Well then... if you are here, it is all the better. There is something I need you to see", Kiritsugu began with a barely audible sigh. "Let's hurry before anyone sees us together."

Jaime hesitated. He wanted to shout out his dismay at the false game Kiritsugu played with him. But he also saw his point.

"Fine", he groaned. "Let's get back so that Irisviel can join us. I'm here as much for her sake as for my own stretched nerves."

If the hitman was startled by these words he didn't show. They wordlessly climbed the stairs again and soon enough Iri guided them through the emergency exit she held open. Together they entered the sticky hotel room Kiritsugu and his silent assistant had stayed in. It was an incredibly modest room where the only additions its guests made were a couple of bags scattered on the floor and on one of the beds. Few of them seemed to contain clothing. More of them contained weapons and Jaime guessed one of them was filled with aforementioned explosives. But that was no surprise. It was as ordinary as it can go with someone like Emiya. But Jaime felt something else that was off the moment he stepped inside. It was the smell. Sweat mingled with... something more intimate. Jaime saw that while one bed sheet was obviously never in use due it being used to showcase a bunch of coffers with weapons of various sizes, the other one was in wild disarray. For some reason Jaime felt anger swelling up in his stomach.

 _Did we disturb them at something else?_

He looked at Irisviel, who was eying her surroundings in a similarly wary way. But she didn't say anything. She probably didn't understand the implications as well as he did, Jaime thought.

 _As expected, she's just too innocent for her own good._

He had to admit he himself had a hard time believing it. Kiritsugu didn't seem like a man who so eagerly abandoned his vows. The knight sighed. It seemed men were just men no matter which time and which world he visited. He tried to calm himself down. He had to work together with that bastard, there was no chance to get out of his own oath so easily. So he really shouldn't confront him while he was riled up.

"Fine. You guys first", he grunted.

Kiritsugu nodded towards his 'friend'.

"Maiya."

She faced Jaime and Iri with cold and joyless eyes. She was a plain woman, Jaime thought frowning. He wondered how a man no matter how depraved would prefer her to a beauty like the silver-haired woman next to him.

 _Then again, I've spend a good decade watching a drunken oaf shunning my dear sweet sister... not that she wished him to be in her bed anyways._

Maiya however begun to speak matter-of-factly and Jaime listened closely to her monotone voice while she strode towards a small video recorder on the ground.

"There was an incident yesterday at the Tohsaka residence. Apparently the fighting has already begun", she activated it and the boxy TV sprung to life.

 _Am I too late?_ , Jaime wondered while creeping closer to make sense of the screen.

It showed the dark surroundings of an ominous manor in the midst of Fuyuki's foreign district. Something came crashing through the beautifully tended garden, cleaving through a whole series of magic traps like they were nothing. It was an immensely tall knight on horseback, with a young boy clutching frantically at his back. But the knight of the Kingsguard had no eyes for that one. He was focused on the heraldry on the knight's shield.

 _No way!_

Jaime couldn't help but gape at it in utter disbelieve. On a gold field, a crowned stag in black. House Baratheon. His mind raced. He felt his heart pounding in excitement. His sword hand itched, only this time it was no phantom pain. It itched for battle. The way Kiritsugu had put it Jaime had expected to fight completely unknown heroes of this strange world, people who meant nothing to him. But this knight was from Westeros like he himself. And while he was indeed not that bright when it came to his general history, he knew how to listen when it came to tales of virtue and bravery. This was a Baratheon, a house which had brought forth quite a lot of distinguished knights who wore this sigil. And it was the sigil of legendary House Durrandon before it. A gleeful smile crept up on his face.

 _Who am I about to face? The Conqueror's right hand Orys Baratheon? Ser Raymond Baratheon of the Kingsguard? Or even the Laughing Storm himself? I wouldn't be the first Kingsguard to challenge that one. Or is it a Durrandon? Do I get to react the Battle of the Last Storm with Argilac? Or is it one of the many Durrans, these black-haired beasts of men? No... Don't tell me it is God's Grief himself!_

Everyone was possible in this Grail War affair and that simple fact reduced the knight to his fifteen years old self. For every name Jaime sprung to mind, his curiosity grew immensely. He paid no heed for that his Master and his companions saw Jaime's open amazement. He just cared for the identity of the opponent he was about to face. And he cursed the fact that each and every one of those stags used these antlers as helm decoration. Without any more clues figuring out his identity would be nigh impossible. It might have been a clue that he used a warhammer to smash in the front doors of the manor, but since that was a very sensible choice of weapon when you are about to confront an armored opponent, Jaime was still at a loss after the knight disappeared inside and out of view.

"The Servant entered the building for approximately ten minutes before he left again", Maiya explained and pushed the fast-forward button while talking. "Whatever happened, it was a short visit."

Then she stopped and Jaime watched the impressive figure leaving on the same way, minus the triggering deathtraps. But this time he looked slightly different. His helmet was removed and Jaime looked into the face of a black-bearded, black-headed hulk of a man, hanging his head lowered. A man he knew all too well.

"No!", he exclaimed, all his hopes at once smashed into pieces. "Seven hells, no!"

Jaime pushed Maiya away from the recorder, pushing the pause button himself, only to gape longer at that miserable face.

 _The Gods must be mocking me!_

"You know this man?", Kiritsugu asked, being the fool that he was.

"Of course I know!", the knight spat back, still struggling from the shock of being thrown back into his bearded current self. "It's the drunken oaf, the whoremonger!"

Maiya stared at him blankly, Kiritsugu frowned and Irisviel threw a confused glance at her husband. Sighing, Jaime tried to calm himself, suppressing the sudden urge to punch something. Instead he just ran his left hand through his hair in exasperation.

"It is King Robert of House Baratheon, first of his name", he sneered especially the last part in his most sarcastic voice. "He happens to be the second king I served..."

 _... and the father to my children..._

"Is that going to be a problem?", Kiritsugu asked bluntly.

"Huh, what?", the knight needed a few seconds to process what his Master meant.

Before answering he faced back to the TV, with the implications finally dawning upon him. Kiritsugu must have been afraid he would put his vows to protect the king before his vows to claim that thrice damned chalice.

"No, not really", he finally admitted softly, his mind having gone blank in the meantime.

That stinking moron meant nothing to him and so did his vows. He remembered the anger he felt each time he stood guard while that drunken fool forced himself on his sister. Considering as what his sweet sister had exposed herself after all, Jaime might have felt pity for Robert, but part of him was sure that his treatment of her was just another factor adding into her madness. If he had treated her well and forgot that accursed child of the North, maybe things would have turned out differently. And yet Jaime felt disappointed. Robert in his prime was a formidable warrior, some say the strongest man in Westeros, and yet this reveal had robbed him of all the joy he would have felt by crossing swords with someone more legendary.

 _Well, with five others to go there is still a chance to meet someone more interesting..._

"Maiya, please tell Saber and Iri what you told me before", Kiritsugu meanwhile asked.

"Very well: Considering the amount of time between entrance and exit, combined with the fact the Servant seemed in no hurry afterwards we have to assume that he neutralized whatever enemy he faced inside."

 _To be expected. Whatever you might say about Robert, the man knew how to fight. Knows how to fight, I mean..._

Jaime nodded.

"Despite that I also observed the light being killed soon afterwards", Maiya continued. "So it seems someone still survived the assault."

"Maybe he left the Master alive", Jaime guessed.

"Or they allied", Kiritsugu interjected. "It appears doubtful he managed to finish a Servant in so short a time."

He looked at Irisviel and she responded to his silent imploring with a shaking of her head.

"It could also mean that he hasn't found an enemy after all", Kiritsugu said then, looking thoughtful. "It is still very early for the ritual, maybe Tohsaka wasn't successful in his summoning yet. Even then, why should he leave a possible Master alive?"

"An enemy you know is better than waiting for someone unexpected to replace him", Maiya proposed.

"Maybe. It can still be a ruse to make Tohsaka appear weak, only to set up a trap for the next Master charging in. Saber, what can you tell us about that Robert Baratheon?"

The knight mused how he should put his words. The Kingsguard must protect the secrets of the king after all. But oh well, this here was about the principle.

"I'm not sure Robert is bright enough to think up something so back-handed. As foolish as he is, he values bravery in battle above all else. He prefers frontal assaults and has the experience and the raw strength to prevail with that tactic. On the other hand... Even without Jon Arryn at his side he showed some low cunning in the rebellion. And he has this uncanny charisma of his. Lock him up in a chamber with his worst enemy for an hour or so and you'll see he will have befriended him. That's why I believe both options are entirely reasonable."

Kiritsugu gave an acknowledging grunt.

"I see. We should try to keep an eye on Baratheon and his Master then to see what connection they have to Tohsaka. If there is an opening on the side of Tohsaka, we should exploit it. And the sooner the better."

With this their plan was made. Kiritsugu and Maiya would concentrate on the scouting, with the grumpy ex-hitman concentrating on Robert and the dull-eyed wench concentrating on that Tohsaka guy, whoever that was.

"You and Irisviel should keep walking around the city in order to detract attention from us", Kiritsugu finally said to Jaime. "And do not meet up with us like this again, you may have already compromised our cover."

"I hope you don't expect me to be sorry", the knight sneered back at this derision.

Kiritsugu blinked.

"You came because you wanted to tell me something. What is it then?"

Jaime glanced at Irisviel who stood behind her husband. She showed again the same pleading 'Please don't make a fuzz out of it' face she had made before. And like before it confused Jaime to no end. He wanted to send her out, but he also knew that it would be improper to lock her out of a subject regarding her own life. He sighed, raising his left hand in a waving motion.

"You see, it is not a huge thing", the Kingsguard began darkly. "I just wanted to give you-"

Jaime's right fist cracked him across the mouth so hard the hitman went tumbling down to the floor. It wasn't even close to an actual punch, the knight made sure of that, it was just a brush. And yet it was enough to make the surprised killer land on his ass. Irisviel gave a short shriek and Maiya glared at him looking like she was about to jump.

"No more surprises, Emiya", Jaime growled. "You kept Iri's true role in this sick game to yourself. Why?"

Kiritsugu wiped the blood off his lips with the back of his hand, all the while staring at Jaime with his hard eyes.

"Wasn't your own reaction answer enough to you?", he replied coldly.

The knight took a deep breath. His anger was still rummaging in his bowels, but at least he had been able to vent a little bit of it.

"Oh, don't make me laugh. You brought this upon yourself. How did you think you could explain it to me when she... when she...", it was such a mad thought, he couldn't even put into words.

"Until then I thought I had figured you out", Kiritsugu defended himself, swallowing his own anger. "When I told you our goal you laughed about it. So I couldn't risk it to immediately let you know what sacrifice needs to be made in order to achieve it. Even though I have to admit that I hadn't expected a man who calls himself Kingslayer to reveal such softness."

"Sacrifice?", Jaime laughed bitterly, waving with his left towards the silver-haired woman. "This sacrifice stands right there!"

It was now finally the moment for Iri to step forward. But much to the knight's dismay she decided to stop at the side of Kiritsugu.

"Please, Ser Jaime", she pleaded. "You may feel left in the dark, but I knew my purpose from the very beginning. Don't be upset for my sake."

"What do you mean, since the beginning?", Jaime asked aghast.

"It was decided even before my birth. It is my purpose given to me by my grandfather... and the fate I have decided to embrace."

 _How can she be just fine with this?_

"And it was decided at my birth that I would inherit Casterly Rock! So much for that!", he exclaimed angrily. "Fate is nothing that is decided by our fathers, we forge it ourselves. I took the White, you could just say no, couldn't you?"

"As I said, even though it was decided by my grandfather, I myself have decided to accept it for the sake of the miracle."

 _The miracle? Don't tell me she means Kiritsugu's childish fantasy..._

Jaime looked back and forth between the couple while Emiya himself struggled to his feet.

"You have heard her version...", he said with finality.

"Aye... and yet it still sounds like madness."

The knight took a deep breath. He realized that all eyes in the room where fixated on him. He knew that he was the person who was out of place, but it seemed crazy that nobody except him was able to see how wrong everything regarding this ritual sounded. Instead they made it look like he was the unreasonable one.

"The battle has started. We cannot allow ourselves to quarrel about details", Kiritsugu broke the short silence. "That's why I need to ask you, Saber: Will you fight regardless of the sacrifice?"

"I already pledged my sword to your cause", Jaime said in a resigned tone. "As I see it I don't have much of a choice, only you two have. I will fight. And will win. If I have to. But let me tell you this: This talk is not over."

He went toward the door and for once Jaime Lannister had no quip on his lips.

"Iri? Let's go. You wanted to see this city... and I owe you to make up for the detour."

 **Sola-ui**

"And here we are at our biggest sight", the head monk declared proudly while touring them through the insides of his temple.

The place was like any other historical Japanese building. It was quite large, boasting an enormous yard in which the monks did their morning exercises and despite its modest purpose there went a certain kind of craftsmanship into the roofs and walls which looked like some kind of Asian half-timbering. Well, if the inner walls weren't made of paper, something Sola-ui at first found amusing, but after a while started to get annoyed from.

 _Who can live in a place like this? And what the hell are they doing in winter? Freezing to death?_

They were walking over some kind of hard mats while the head monk showed them a dusty bedroom that seemed out of use for centuries.

"According to the legend, this is the room where the legendary wandering monk resided after taming the dragon god living under the river Mion. He had prayed three days and three nights before the mighty beast acknowledged his spiritual power."

 _What nonsense..._

It should have been a simple scouting mission while Kayneth was busy setting up his defence perimeter at the hotel. Both a necessity and a good opportunity to better learn to know that intriguing character her otherwise useless fiancé managed to drag back into life. They were inspecting the temple grounds upon mount Enzou when the head monk approached them, most likely thinking they were a pair of tourists. She couldn't really fault him for that, Lancer even decided to come in his physical form, wearing jeans and a red jacket over his orange shirt. Casual clothes he had bought for himself in London. Sola-ui herself wanted to avoid lingering here for long, but Prince Oberyn eagerly accepted the man's offer to show them around and since then they were touring the Ryoudou-temple.

"... and then the wandering monk lived happily ever after, teaching the other monks how to do this fascinating grappling style of your people", Lancer finished the sentence of their guide with an amused smirk.

The head monk seemed taken aback, struggling a bit for words.

"Uh, have I already told this part of the story before?"

"Twice actually", Oberyn replied, never ceasing his generous smile.

"Oh... sorry about my rambling then", the muscled monk scratched the back of his shaved head in embarrassment.

Sola-ui meanwhile wandered a bit around, wondering how much time Lancer was planning to idle away anymore. It was that moment that a little boy with glasses on his nose entered the place, eying both of them with suspicion plainly written on his face.

"I wish you a good day", he said, bowing towards the two strangers before turning towards the head monk. "I didn't know we had guests."

"Oh don't worry, we don't stay long at a place like this", Sola-ui sneered, her impatience getting the better on her. "It's just that the head monk tries to impress us enough to make a donation."

The four-eyed boy glared at her dubiously while the monk himself tried to shrug it off.

"Is it that obvious, eh?", the fool laughed heartily.

Prince Oberyn then stepped between her and the boy, going to his knees to be on eye-level.

"What my friend actually wanted to tell you is that we don't want to keep your father from his more important tasks, you understand?"

"I understand that she is a quite rude woman...", the boy groaned.

"Issei!", his father called out chidingly.

Only minutes later they were finally released. Sola-ui and Lancer climbed down the long stairs leading towards the district of Miyama. The Prince's good humour seemed to know no bounds, something Sola-ui admitted was something she could be envious of. And since she liked him better sporting his charming smile, she wasn't one to complain that he had his fun.

"Milady seemed to be a little bored. Are you not interested in the history of this place?", he asked with not a hind of reproach.

Sola-ui knew she had to smooth the situation over. She had already witnessed his curiosity in regards to foreign cultures when he accompanied her in England, therefore she knew he wouldn't understand if she tells her that she has no interest in the life of these people.

"It is... a bit difficult to take his explanations seriously when he knows barely anything about the place he truly lives in", she finally said with great care to her words.

Prince Oberyn scanned his surroundings.

"He did say it is a place of great karmic importance", he admitted. "Sure enough, he is not aware of this weird curse that keeps me from entering from any other angle except these stairs."

"It wards off spirits", Sola-ui explained. "Maybe some centuries ago there was indeed a Magus from an eastern school who used the leyline under the mountain to form such a defence mechanism. But the mountain contains even more mysteries this fool is blind to."

"The Grail?", Lancer asked, his expression having turned seriously.

"Indeed. The Greater Grail even, the construct that gives birth to the vessel of the miracle. The very same we are currently fighting for."

The Prince of Dorne nodded in understanding. Something Sola-ui was always happy to see. That man was not just some medieval thug like she had feared before the summoning. He was obviously a learned man who had at least some basic knowledge about magic. Therefore he was quick to understand even complicated subjects and always eager consume more knowledge. His sharp wit, his courteous behaviour, his wild aura... Sola-ui had to admit that she was really enjoying his company.

"There are four of those fallen leylines in the city, aren't there?", Oberyn asked when they arrived back on the streets of Miyama.

"There are. The Greater Grail is just one of them. Two of them are occupied by factions of the Grail War, the Tohsaka residence and the church. Since the church is considered neutral ground setting up a base there stands out of the question. The last one however...", Sola-ui sighed. "Sixty years ago it was just empty farmland. But now... These eastern morons should have done the sensible thing and secured the area, but instead they allowed the government to cover it with a whole residential district. I have heard the centre of the convergence is now below the Shinto city hall."

 _Tohsaka residence is the closest to here. But a familiar would suffice for a closer look, there is no reason to provoke that Master by showing up ourselves._

Sola-ui's train of thought was interrupted when a plain white football rolled in front of her feet. Both of them stopped and looked out for its owner. To the left of the sidewalk they were using was a big playground where half a dozen children had been playing around noisily. One of them approached them, a little girl who dipped her head apologetically.

"Gomen nasai", she called out in that native tongue of hers.

Sola-ui hesitated, looking at the ball to her feet.

 _Oberyn seemed upset about me being so dismissive of that brat earlier. Maybe I should..._

She picked up the ball, donning her most gentle smile and mentally preparing herself to give that filthy toy to the careless native.

"You need to be more careful, little one", she said with an amiable voice.

The girl stopped, not coming closer anymore.

"You come from far away?", she said with heavily accented English.

 _At least she is not totally uneducated..._

"We kind of are...", Oberyn answered in her stead.

"How do you like Fuyuki?", she asked.

"Oh it is great... and I have the feeling it is going to get more exciting with every minute", he gave one of his sharp smiles, one of those which could cut a cake.

"You live here?", Sola-ui then asked, feigning interest.

She looked at her with her grey eyes.

"I am new too. But the children here are welcoming enough", she giggled. "Want to join our game."

"We are too busy, I am sorry", Sola-ui tried to sound not too annoyed at the suggestion, instead she tried to go forward, wanting to give back the ball.

She immediately ran into the outstretched arm of Lancer. Sola-ui threw a confused glance at him. His smile was still there, but his eyes were serious.

"You are staying close nearby?", the girl further implored, seemingly unaware of the strange behaviour of her company.

"You are terribly curious for a country girl...", he gave a well-timed chuckle. "You'd do good keeping this trait of yours."

"I can't help it", she returned his smile.

Something was wrong. Sola-ui was completely unable to sense anything unusual, but her guts told her that this situation was just totally off. Even the children who had played with her seemed to know that. They stared at the three of them with confusion plainly written across their faces. And then Prince Oberyn leaned closer to her, all the while never lowering his arm, never signalling Sola-ui that the danger is over.

"Valar morghulis", he said.

The words meant nothing to the Magus and yet it was enough to send a shiver down her spine.

"Valar dohaeris", the girl replied immediately. "You came from farther away than you made yourself look like."

"I could say the same of you", Oberyn stated darkly. "But it is terribly brave of you to approach me like this, I give you that. What if I just strike you down?"

"In front of the children?", she asked with a dubious expression.

The Prince of Dorne shrugged.

"Maybe I don't care."

The girl didn't reply to that. And neither saw Prince Oberyn any reason to prolong the conversation. It was as if the entire street was swallowed by silence, drowning out even the noise of the cars behind them. Then the girl turned towards Sola-ui, her expression softening immediately.

"Can we please get our ball back at least?"

For a moment she just stood there awestruck. But then she threw it towards the strange girl and she caught it easily.

"A good day then. I hope you have an enjoyable time here", she bowed before running off back to her friends.

Her mood seemed completely changed after she joined the other kids, resuming their game of football in the dirt.

"What did that mean?", Sola-ui asked warily.

"Trouble", Oberyn looked thoughtful. "We need to be extremely cautious from now on... and I advise you to wash your hands."

 **Kirei**

The priest sat in a chair, having his fingers folded pensively in front of his face. He was in the hotel room he had set up his makeshift base in. And he was also still contemplating what that meant for his alliance with Tohsaka. Since the initial plan had failed he didn't dare make contact with his father considering that he was still officially a Master, so he was on his own. On the table in front of him lay the documents he had sent to him instead. The identities of the Masters known to the church. Besides him and Tokiomi there were two Magi of the Mage's association, which was not very surprising. One Master was still unknown, but according to the inspectors guarding the greater Grail, all Servants were already summoned. And as Tokiomi had already deduced, Zouken Matou himself has announced that his nephew Kariya had successfully summoned a Servant of the Berserker class. Kirei was sure that these curious eyes at the Tohsaka residence belonged to him. But it was an interesting choice for a Master, that was for sure. As far as Tohsaka knew that man had abandoned the life of a Magus years ago. An act Tokiomi regarded as disgraceful and seemed even a little angry at the mention of it. But then there was the last one of the seven... the Einzbern Master who drew the curiosity of Kirei like no other.

 _The Magus Killer, Kiritsugu Emiya..._

Like Kirei himself he seemed a restless person, at least in the years before he joined the Einzberns. And a dangerous person, too. A person who seemed to care for nothing but success, a man who was able to sacrifice as many as necessary in order to eliminate a single target. He was unable to feel anything, that's how it looked like for Kirei. An alike spirit who both drew his interest and terrified him more than he could tell.

"Am I interrupting you at something?", an awfully young voice ripped him out of his thoughts.

 _Oh right, it is already this late._

The most unusual Assassin had appeared in his room, eying her surroundings more out of boredom than actual curiosity. Kirei turned in his chair to face her.

"How went your mission, Arya?"

"Good enough, I have found out the identities of two of our enemies", she said in a tone that seemed more thoughtful than proud.

"You sound not like you like what you've found out."

The girl shrugged, now glaring at him with her empty eyes.

"That people like Joffrey for some stupid reason qualify as heroes should have been hint enough that there are only monsters around", Arya said bitterly.

"Kariya's Berserker?"

"The worst of all."

Kirei sighed after she had so mercilessly confirmed his gut feeling.

"Who is he?", he asked after a small pause.

"The Mountain. A cruel bastard who calls himself a knight. I still regret to have not given his name to the many-faced god back at Harrenhal. Do I have your leave to make up for that?"

The priest frowned at the notion.

"You think you can defeat Berserker on your own?"

Arya grimaced.

"No... but I could kill his Master. This way he will surely disappear and die as well."

"I'm not sure...", Kirei pondered his thought. "Maybe we could make use of Kariya and his Servant instead."

"The Mountain's liege lord Tywin Lannister always made use of him. And it were always the wrong people who suffered for it."

"I keep you words in mind", he waved with his left hand in the air. "Go on then, what else have you found out?"

The girl made a short bow.

"I have met the Servant of the man Archibald El-Melloi. He was inspecting Miyama together with a woman who seems to be an ally of his Master. I'm afraid that I can't tell you much about him yet. He has a funny accent, but despite him being familiar with the Faceless Men, he is not from Braavos. There is a chance I find more out if he'd wear heraldry, but I'm afraid I'm not good enough to recognize a difficult one."

There was something odd about the story she told. Kirei had a bad feeling about it.

"You say he is familiar with your kind. How did you find that out?"

"He saw through my disguise when I approached him", Arya said. "My pardons if I have overstepped the boundaries of your orders. But I thought I could find out more by conversing with him."

"What happened, happened. You don't need to be sorry", Kirei replied begrudgingly. "It is good to know that we need to be careful with that one. I assume your usual tactics will be ineffective against him?"

"Possibly", was the girl's cold answer. "But if it helps, I believe he is now overestimating my abilities."

Indeed Kirei pondered how that could be useful. A paranoid enemy might be wary, but he also behaves more predictably. And yet he remembered that Arya said she now knew two identities. There was still one more left...

"You have found out who Emiya's Servant is?", he leaned forward, unable to hide his curiosity.

"The Kingslayer...", Arya stated icily. "Even with a beard and without his golden armor he is easy to identify. I have watched him and a woman with Targaryen features entering a motel in Shinto, meeting up with Emiya and another woman. Both seem allied with each other."

"Targaryen features?", Kirei asked with a frown.

"Silver hair, purple eyes. I had never seen one before, but I have heard the stories."

 _Red eyes, not purple..._

"She is a homunculus, an artificial human created by the Einzberns. It was to be expected that the Einzbern Master brings the sacrifice for the ritual."

The girl's eyes narrowed.

"Sacrifice?"

"To create a vessel for the Grail, a body needs to be sacrificed. Don't get me wrong, the idea disgusts me as much as you. But this woman is just a puppet, created solely for this purpose", Kirei explained with resignation in his voice. "As far as I know, homunculi are bred in vats and born without soul. They have no mind to speak of, so that sacrificing one shouldn't be a problem."

 _That's as far as ethics go with Magi, I'm afraid..._

"I somehow doubt that", Arya replied warily.

"Doubt what you want. If there is no homunculus, someone else would be chosen by the Grail as a vessel and destroyed. There is nothing we can do about it", Kirei sighed. "What else can you tell me about this Kingslayer? His moniker seems quite fearsome."

Assassin nodded.

"Some say he is the best swordsman in all of Westeros. Not without mentioning how low the bar has fallen, but they still do. They say he killed the king he served. I just know he is a bad person, just as bad as his sister the queen. He killed Jory, Heward and Wyl. Good men in service to my father, each of them. They were my friends", she bit her lip.

Kirei swallowed the bile on his tongue.

"You want to avenge them?"

"If possible, yes."

He nodded in understanding. It was interesting to know that this Emiya was plagued by a Servant known for his fickle attitude. Maybe their role in the Grail War would turn out shorter than expected.

"Your eyes are still out there?", he asked, still sunken in his own thoughts.

"Always", was the short reply.

"I myself am very interested in this man Emiya. Let us watch how he and the Kingslayer work together... I have a feeling we don't need to wait long for an opportunity."

He hoped to see satisfaction in her eyes, but all he was able to read was indifference. If he promised her the certain death of those she wanted to see dead, her reaction might have been different, but like this... He had found himself in a difficult situation with both his companion as well as Tokiomi's being too weak to take anyone head-on. Charging blindly ahead like Rider did could end in a disaster. Waiting for enemy moves and taking them out while they were busy killing each other, that is what he had in mind. And yet, he doubted the girl would understand his reasoning.

"You have done a good job today", Kirei said.

The girl looked up at that, obviously startled.

"A praise from you, strange man?"

The priest shrugged.

"Isn't that what is expected from me to say?"

"It is", Arya said warily. "I just... didn't expect it from you."

"You found out a lot in just one day", he stood up, now towering above her. "Let me accompany you tonight, then. I can't let you do all the work, can I?"

And with these words he strode out of the room, having already equipped himself with his Black Keys beforehand.

 _All seven are most likely from the same world... and all of them seem connected one way or another. This affair is going to be a lot more intriguing than expected._

 **Irisviel**

A soft breeze went through her hair, all the while she felt the refreshing coldness of the water tipping her toes when she walked on top of the white sand. Winter was close upon Fuyuki, but coldness was never something Iri was ever bothered with. She had felt true coldness, once. A chilling that struck her down and made every movement agony. A freezing numbness that swept every single thought out of her brain until she just wanted to lie down and sleep forever. This salty wind was no coldness like that, not by all means. It felt like life, not like death. After a long day of exploring the world of society, always accompanied by the shadow in the black suit, she was only slightly exhausted and yet still wanted to enjoy as much of it as possible. After she had walked among more people than she had ever seen before, it was a nice change of pace to visit this lonely beach to get an impression of what the sea is like.

"It's so much fun to walk around a new town, accompanied by a gentleman", Iri mused.

The golden-haired man next to her seemed a little taken aback by her sudden notion.

"My pardons for nearly ruining it...", he said with a grave voice.

 _This topic again..._

"Don't ponder on it. You were a perfect knight, always at my side, always attentive", she said, slightly dismissing his objections with her smile.

"You do me too much honor, your Grace."

Iri sighed. He might be all courteous, but sometimes he could also be quite sombre. She turned away, watching how the light of the moon was shimmering atop the waves. It was a truly beautiful sight with the huge full moon illuminating the night's sky.

"Do you like the sea, Ser Jaime?"

The knight stepped to her side, following her gaze out into the sea.

"I suppose I do", he said, his green eyes glancing at her. "How about you? I guess this is your first time seeing so much unfrozen water in one place."

"It is... When Kiritsugu... when he showed me pictures of the ocean, I had hoped to just once see one with my own eyes", Iri chuckled lightly. "My ambitions must sound awfully small to you."

She expected him to joke about it, like so many of the things he said were jokes. But when he denied it, his face was dead serious.

"No, not at all", he said, continuing his own gaze to the horizon. "You must know that the castle I was born and raised in was towering above the Sunset Sea. I woke up to the sound of waves and went to bed with the smell of salt in my nose."

Irisviel tried to imagine the picture he was painting and yet in her mind the castle atop the mountainside always turned out to look like the one of the Einzberns.

"It must have been a great sight to behold."

The knight nodded.

"Sometimes I imagined how it would be, leaving all of it behind", he then continued. "To just flee across the sea. Joining a sellsword company, fighting pirates in the Stepstones, visiting the Free Cities. Maybe these thoughts were the proof that I indeed spent too much time in the company of ribald uncle Gerion."

 _He is still nudging towards that topic..._

"But you never did...", she tried to counter him.

"Not over the sea, no", Ser Jaime turned towards her, a bitter smile on his face. "But I fled nonetheless."

"And you rue it to this day, don't you?"

"I... I don't regret having given up Casterly Rock, if that is what you mean. I just regret the kings I served and the things I allowed to happen since then."

"You see", Irisviel tried to speak as confident as possible. "If I were to flee, I would always regret the things happening thereafter. Kiritsugu as well. All of them. Until the regrets will inevitably consume his soul."

Ser Jaime gave a grunt.

"He is not the only person you love, right? Think about what your death will do to your daughter."

"There is nothing I need to worry about as long as Kiritsugu succeeds. Then my death will have saved her life."

"And if we fail? Isn't that quite a lot of risk to bet on only my sword?"

"Kiritsugu will not allow that to-", a gasp went through her throat.

A shiver went through her entire body, a shiver that was not caused by the cold. It were her magic circuits which were vibrating, announcing the presence of something powerful and ferocious.

"Did you-"

"I felt it as well", Jaime cut her short.

"This someone is inviting us", Iri observed.

"Indeed. How shall we proceed, your Grace?"

She knew this moment would happen. All things had to end and this was the beginning of it. But she would face it with her head held high.

"We should take him up on his offer..."

For a moment Jaime seemed surprised, but his frown soon turned into a smile.

"As you wish."

Following the presence of their enemy the two of them didn't have to go very far. It lead them to the nearby docks, where the natural partition through the large metal containers was reinforced through a well crafted bounded field. Whoever was responsible for this certainly knew what he was doing.

"I am glad you came. I already feared all my opponents would be so craven to not show their true faces", a heavily accented voice called out.

Jaime tensed.

"Keep your distance", he warned her softly.

She knew she could defend herself if necessary, but she was also fairly sure that fighting a superpowered Heroic Spirit on her own would be foolish. Therefore she stepped to the side, allowing the knight to have all the room he was going to need. And when she turned back to the battlefield, a figure clad like the sun had appeared right in front of them. With his Armor scaled with copper, shield in gold and red and a murderous spear tucked under his armpit, he was a terrifying sight. And when his eyes met the ones of the golden-haired knight in the black suit, he formed a smile with a vicious edge to it.

"Ser Jaime sisterfucking Lannister!", he gleefully called out.

Iri looked towards her protector, watching how he reacted to the insult. He paused a little, raising his chin, but otherwise took it in stride.

 _They know each other as well?_

Their opponent now raised both his arms to the night sky as if in prayer.

"Our meeting is the ultimate proof that the Gods are truly blessing me! Of all the poor fellows they could have chosen for me to kill they have gifted me with a Lannister!", he then retrieved his spear and pointed it at the knight. "Why so silent, Kingslayer? Have you finally run out of snide remarks?"

Jaime's initially cautious reaction was meanwhile fully blown away. Now he just stood there, chuckling to himself.

"My pardons, Prince Oberyn, I was too busy getting this image of you being a smear on the floor out of my head. What did you say? Maybe you should come closer if you dare. But be careful with your neck. The best way to kill snakes is by chopping off their heads after all..."

"You won't get close enough to land even one blow", the enemy Servant threatened..

"Is this a challenge? Pray tell what is it you are making your bet with? A bag of Dornish sand? A couple of stones? Or one of these baseborn daughters of yours?"

Much to Iri's surprise, this thought seemed to amuse their opponent.

"Are you tired of your golden-haired whore to make such a bold proposition?", he laughed darkly. "Go on, you have my leave to take your chances. But don't complain to me if you wake up and find your testicles removed."

"Ah... as pleasant as exchanging barbs with you always is, we both know that we came to exchange blows of a much different kind."

"So it is..."

After these words, the two men remained silent for a couple of seconds. Only the wind brushing along the containers was audible. A wind that soon enough turned into a strong gust. The source of it was Jaime himself. He emitted an aura which was illuminating the night, driving the darkness back into the deepest corners. Iri herself had to cover her eyes as the blinding light burned into them. And when she dared to open her eyes again, a billowing white cloak was the first she saw amidst the slowly subsiding aura. The black-suited gentleman had disappeared and was replaced by the knight of the Kingsguard. From head to toe Jaime was encased in heavy steel. Untouched by paint and polished until it had turned into a mirror, this knight didn't look white anymore. His armor and shield reflected the moonlight, giving him a bluish shimmer that reminded Irisviel of the ocean she had admired before.

"I hope your sword is as sharp as your tendency to look dramatic", Prince Oberyn chirped.

"Trust me, Ser, it is sharper", Jaime Lannister replied, brimming with confidence.

The white knight drew his sword. Iri had not seen it drawn before, she would have remembered such a blade very well. The steel was so dark it nearly turned to black, red ripples going through its entire length like blood-filled veins. It seemed to pulsate when Jaime weighed it in the air. Even he himself observed it with unabashed marvel as it cut audibly through the air.

"Now, let us dance!", the Kingsguard announced eagerly.

And the sun readied itself when the moon charged into battle.

* * *

Author's notes: So... if you have read my comment to A Certain Random Guys "A Servant of Ice and Fire" in which my idea to this story was born (if haven't done it till now: Big recommendation from me for his shorts, even though they need an update badly), you may have noticed that I expected Jaime and Kerry to work together splendidly, at least for a time. I was as suprised as you are when I realized just how sick Jaime is to being a bystander while atrocities happen. Well, I dare to say this makes the path they are going to take no less interesting, even though it made me slightly suspicious of how our dear King Arthur was able to keep up with him for so long without calling him out on it. It seems the original Saber has far more patience than this one.

Well, so much for now. I hope I was able to entertain a little!


	5. Chapter 5 - Battle of the Docks

Welcome back! Wow, the last update was quite some time ago... apologies for that. Thing is, with college being quite busy right now I had to set my priorities and there my other Fate story got the focus. But now that I have finished a climactic battle scene there, I think granting Fates of Ice and Fire an update is about time. Now let's get back into Fuyuki of 1994...

* * *

Chapter 5 - Battle of the Docks

 **Waver**

 _Why is this happening to me?_

All he could think of the entire day was that it wouldn't have turned out this way with Alexander the Great. It couldn't have. That one was a true hero. A conqueror who made the whole world tremble under his ambitions. A hero with blonde curls, young and lean. He surely would have obeyed him, glad to be led to victory. He would have never dragged him around, or... or... abandoned him.

 _In 240 years of Holy Grail Wars I'm certainly the first idiot who lost his Servant. Not by force or by treachery, just lost like you loose the keys to your car._

After what had happened at the Tohsaka residence, Rider brought Waver back to the place of the Mackenzies before he vanished into the night, saying he needed some time to think. Waver had expected him to be back in the morning, but unfortunately he took his breakfast alone. And after he still hadn't shown up at midday, Waver started to get worried. Of course he was sure that Rider hadn't gotten himself killed in the meantime, the Command Spells on his right hand still marked him as a Master, but it still seemed strange. Therefore he used his spiritual connection to the ferocious knight in order to track him... and it turned out to be quite an exhausting paperchase regardless of his supernatural advantage. Wherever he went, it was like he missed the knight by a hair's width. And the places he went to...

 _What the hell is he doing?_

The chase went from the most rustic places in Miyama to the darkest back-alleys of Shinto. He looked into noodle shops, small liquor stores, bars and even one very, very, very, very weird bathhouse where just about everything looked dubious. Since Waver was not speaking Japanese he had of course his fair share of trouble conversing with the people he ran into. But for some reason the name 'Robert-sama' popped up quite a few times amidst pantomimed grand gestures...

 _And what the hell is he thinking? Going under his real name like this..._

Waver rode through Shinto on his bicycle, even though darkness had set in and the night was upon Fuyuki. He had to, otherwise he would go crazy through frustration. At least this time when he stopped in front of another dubious-looking pub he still felt the presence of his runaway Servant. 'Kopenhagen' was written in English letters on the outside. At last he had him nailed down, or at least that's what he thought upon entering it, smouldering with rage.

"Huh?"

The tiny pub was seemingly empty. The patron was a young man with a moustache who stood idly at the bar. Upon Waver's entering, he greeted him in Japanese.

„Excuse me", Waver said with a frown. "Have you seen a large bearded man. Black hair, blue eyes, wears a medieval armor."

The man stared at him with wide eyes, bowing and sprouting excuses Waver couldn't understand.

 _Can nobody in this backwater country speak English?_

"Robert Baratheon!", he called out angrily.

Now that caused a reaction from the man, even though he seemed a little nervous.

"You have seen this man, haven't you? Where is he?"

The patron raised his hands in a defensive gesture. For Waver it didn't look like he was inclined to tell him even if he had been able to understand.

 _Damn it, he is close. I can feel him, he is-_

His train of thought was stopped abruptly when boastful laughter echoed through the bar. Even though he had spend only a couple of hours with that annoying guy, he recognized his voice immediately. Further riled up by the fact that the guy had the guts to laugh while he spent the entire day chasing him, he followed the sound towards a door next to the bar.

 _Oh, very clever! Hiding in a back room._

Waver immediately went towards the door while the patron seemed aghast. He jumped up the moment he realized what his guest was up to, leaving his position and running up to him. But it was already too lade. Waver had opened the door and stepped into the shady back room.

 _What the..._

Half a dozen grim eyes were fixated on him. All of them visibly unhappy to be disturbed. And all of them belonging to neatly dressed men who were sitting around a table, playing cards. All of them wore suits, only one old man stuck out because he was wearing a traditional Kimono which was further pimped out by the tiger-striped fabric. Under usual circumstances Waver would have seen that he had stepped into something dangerous and yet his anger took the better of him. Because there he sat, right next to the old man with the tiger-stripes. Robert Baratheon, watching his cards and looking like nothing in the world bothered him.

"You!", Waver called out, freeing himself from the grip of the patron who had tried catch him by the shoulder, all the while sprouting more excuses to his customers. "What are you doing here, Rider!"

The knight looked up, blinking.

"Oh, boy! Nice of you to join in!", he turned to his companion, telling him something in his native language.

The old man then grinned, telling his companions something that made them at once stop glaring at Waver.

"May I introduce you: Fujmura Raiga-dono. We have met up in Miyama and he was nice enough to show me around the town. He even bought me this outfit! I tell you the hospitality of this people is truly inspiring!"

"I am glad you had fun...", Waver hissed with a glare.

"This young man is Waver-kun! I kind of stay at his place", Robert said to his host.

The old man gave him a welcoming smile.

"If you are a friend of Robert-san, then you are surely one of me as well", his English was heavily accented, but better than nothing. "He is truly a remarkable man of many interests."

"He is?", Waver tried not to turn his anger towards the old man.

"Oh yes of course! At first I had thought he is just an odd foreigner, but after talking with him about this and that, I found a refreshing new perspective on sports and... other entertainment."

 _Sure..._

"Sit down, please! Don't be shy!", he offered him one of the empty seats and Waver warily obeyed. "Now where were we? Ah yes, you wanted to tell us how to spear-hunt."

He had switched into English, obviously to allow Waver to join the discussion if he wished to do so.

"Right, right", Robert chuckled. "You know, that's not the kind of hunting for everyone. You need the muscles for it, otherwise the bow is your weapon of choice. But, you know, the problem with the bow is that you can never be sure that you killed your prey alright and when you don't, then you have to chase some bleeding creature through the entire King's Wood until you're half-way at Maidenpool."

He laughed heartily about his own joke, even though his old host himself was the only one drunk enough to join him.

"The spear is my favourite weapon when it comes to creatures that aren't too scared to fight back", Robert continued his rant. "Boars most of all. They get really pissed when you step into their view and won't back down until they die. I really like that! You can finish them then and there and are back home before the sun has set."

"You mean, you face them up close and personal?", Fujimura asked with raised eyebrows.

"Of course! Can you imagine me fooling around with a bowstring?"

The old man seemed astonished, but shook his head regardless.

"Well, you certainly have the stature to pull something like this off. I think I have never seen such a hulk of a person before!"

"Har! No reason for false flattery. It's not that I kept myself in good shape or something", another wave of laughter went right over Waver's head while he himself was busy resting his head on the table. "Fine, where was I? Oh right, the boar-hunt. Well, the only thing I can advise you is that you shouldn't be too drunk when you are trying to find one. Got one hell of a scratching after I did that the last time."

 _Why do I get the feeling that we are missing out on something huge?_ _What are we even doing here?_

"You, drunk? How is that even possible?", Fujimura called out aghast. "I have seen you emptying a ridiculous amount of wine and sake and you don't look fazed in the slightest!"

"I have to thank that boy over there", Robert chuckled, patting Waver's shoulder. "Looks like the body he gave me isn't able to get drunk."

"You're welcome...", the boy groaned miserably.

The man looked at first confused about Robert's choice of words, but soon enough laughed it off. He was obviously way past caring about what nonsense the knight was sprouting.

"Hey, boy? What are you making such a face? Straighten up and enjoy this great company!"

"You seriously have to ask why I'm pissed?", Waver did straighten up, but not to join the conversation. "The other- the others are out there, likely already going for the- well, the 'business'. And you are sitting here trying your best to get wasted! That's what I don't understand."

Robert Baratheon made a grumpy face, which was the most serious expression Waver had seen this evening.

"I have told you that this 'business' of yours doesn't interest me anymore. Get over it. And it's not worth the trouble, you only get your sorry ass killed if you go on without me. Just... leave it be..."

Waver sighed in resignation.

"Killed? Are you doing something dangerous here in Fuyuki?", the old man interjected.

"No, not anymore", Robert tried to gloss it over. "I am way past this business of the boy. Now I'm just here to enjoy what little time I have left in this country", he glanced down at Waver who rested his head on the table again. "And I guess I have the task to teach this boy _how_ to enjoy yourself. I'm afraid having fun is the one thing he never learned in that college of his."

 _Shut up and just allow me to go home..._

 **Jaime**

Oathkeeper was singing in the air. In life the sword was wasted on him, but now in death Jaime was able to make full use of this most precious treasure.

 _Don't worry, Brienne. I'll give it back as soon as my business here is finished._

His mind raced as steel and steel clashed in the air. His entire body reacted on impulse, all his movements were fluid as instincts took over. Whenever he saw the spear of Prince Oberyn darting forward, either his shield or Oathkeeper were there, blocking it easily while he stepped into the room between them, trying to close the gap. But the Prince of Dorne was no easy enemy. He knew what he was doing, he made full use of his reach and his superhuman agility. When Jaime announced it would become a dance, he didn't meant it quite as literal. Both warriors were darting across the docks, exchanging powerful blows which shattered their surroundings.

 _By the Gods, what power!_

Every time spear and shield and sword clashed, sparks scattered everywhere and the air itself blasted away to escape the inhuman violence of the Heroic Spirits. The Valyrian steel moved through the air so devastatingly that Jaime could cut stone and steel just by swinging at it, he didn't even need to touch it. It was just Oberyn's equally superhuman armor that kept him from being cut to pieces just by the after-effects of the Kingsguard's attacks. He didn't wore the light leather armor he used to fight the mountain, a sensible choice which forced Jaime to aim at the joints instead of just cutting him in half. But as far as he could see, the scaled mail didn't hamper Oberyn in the least regardless of the added weight. Jaime himself was the one who was slightly disadvantaged when it came to movement, but his heavy plate mail felt as light as a second skin, so it didn't bother him all that much. He just didn't advance as aggressively as he would usually do due the opponent he was facing. If it were any other man, Jaime could just march into his next strike, letting his armor take it, and slash his throat when he is close. But he was fighting the Red Viper. He didn't even dare receiving a single scratch, afraid what nasty poison the man had applied to his spear. Not that he wasn't deadly enough without it...

 _Such speed, such strength!_

Jaime charged forward, countering countless attacks and hitting the shield with the sun and spear countless times himself. He was sure to have looked like a murderous lunatic, because he couldn't help but grin in excitement.

 _This is how battles should be fought! Can you feel this, Oberyn?_

He must have. The Red Viper himself had that smug smile on his face, the one Jaime aimed at the whole time trying to carve it out of it. Jaime didn't know how long they fought, but it couldn't have been much. Seconds felt like minutes, every careful movement was triggered in slow motion to him. So when they disentangled after an especially vicious exchange of blows, Jaime looked around in surprise, realizing how much ground they had covered during their dance. And how little of their surroundings was not utterly devastated. The concrete on the ground was shattered through countless furrows, the steel containers around them cut to pieces with their contents spilled looking like they were ripped cushions.

"Not bad, not bad at all. For a sun-dried snake", Jaime admitted.

"A compliment I can return. Not bad... for a cripple", again, he flashed this poisonous smile of his.

Jaime again weighed Oathkeeper in his hand. Such a light weapon, deadly and beautiful. No doubt Brienne must have felt the same excitement he felt at the moment. His heart was racing, this was what he was born to do.

 _Let's finish this here and now... and then the fat oaf is the next one!_

With a grin of his face, Jaime raised his mirror shield and pushed forward.

 **Kiritsugu**

Two dots of blue and yellow danced around on the ground while the Magus Killer observed them from one of the two loading cranes. Maiya had set up position on the one opposing him. Of course there was an even taller crane that could have made a perfect position, but Kiritsugu hoped to draw unwanted onlookers towards it. Up until now, nobody had shown up.

 _It seems Lancer is the only enemy who cared to show up personally._

He glanced below where Irisviel stood, watching the fight of the two superhuman titans with awe. She was the only human down there, the Master of Lancer seemingly wasn't daring enough to show his face. But at least the fight itself looked pretty favourable from an objective point of view. Jaime Lannister was driving his enemy relentlessly across the yard, this Oberyn was completely focused on avoiding the knight's swings, unable to do more than half-hearted attacks himself.

 _As fickle as the Kingslayer has proven himself to be, he at least knows his business. It looks like he is going straight for the kill, as it should be. All I can do is helping him win as fast as possible._

The Magus Killer further observed his surroundings. The large crane was still unoccupied. But on the other hand... Kiritsugu activated his radio, never even looking away from the heat signature he had detected.

"Maiya. On the roof of the warehouse. Can you see him?"

"Negative", was her short reply.

 _She is outside the bounded field. That could prove troublesome._

"Shall I change my position?"

"No need for it. Since we are alone, I can take him out without you endangering your cover."

"Understood."

He took aim with his sniper rifle, his view was ideal.

 _So much for Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi..._

Kiritsugu pulled the trigger. A single bang echoed through the docks. And his victim... remained unfazed. An arm made of silvery goo had risen up the very same instant, knocking the bullet easily away.

 _A defensive Mystic Code..._

And through his scope Kiritsugu watched how the enemy Master looked straight at him, putting on a smug smile.

 _Shit..._

 **Jaime**

The knight paused upon hearing the gunshot above. Being completely aware that Kiritsugu had joined the battle only a couple of moments ago, he knew what this meant.

 _What a killjoy. If he has taken out Oberyn's Master, our dance will be short-li-_

His train of thought was interrupted by a shattering crunch from the warehouse behind his opponent. Something had cut a perfect circle into the right wall of it, exactly as large as the huge silver ball which was slowly rolling out of it, coming closer.

 _What in the seven hells..._

He was so focused, he nearly didn't see the strike of Oberyn's spear coming for his head. Realizing his mistake, he parried it with the edge of his shield and went into the opening of the Dornishman. Oathkeeper was blocked by the sun-shaped shield and so the fighting continued.

 _Okay, fine. I'll do my job, Kiritsugu is making his one._

 **Kiritsugu**

Abandoning his rifle, Kiritsugu jumped to change positions. Up here he was a sitting duck, he couldn't allow Kayneth to trap him where he had no way to move. Therefore he left the Walther where it was and slid down the first ladder in order to get closer to the ground. He moved in all haste, jumping towards the next one.

 _Too late..._

The entire construction shook. Looking down Kiritsugu realized that Kayneth wasn't even trying to climb up himself. The bastard was cutting the supportive elements of the crane.

 _I'm too far away to use the Contender..._

Kiritsugu drew his Callico instead, giving a short burst to the ground where Kayneth stood. He was hardly able to hit anything and his Mystic Code easily shielded him from those bullets which came closest to him. Meanwhile the entire construction begun to shriek as the metal frames did their dying breath. The crane shivered and tilted forwards.

 _Oh, not good..._

The Magus Killer clung to the nearest railing, trying his best not to fall. Dislodged from its foundation, the crane slowly bowed forward. Kiritsugu saw the Servants fighting below him and he saw a white figure fleeing from the incoming wreckage. He knew that he couldn't survive a fall from this height, especially not with the entire construction collapsing on top of him. He looked forward instead. There was something else rapidly coming closer to him. It was the other crane, the one where Maiya had set up her position.

 _I have to hurry. Time Alter: Double Accel!_

His heart felt like it was ripping him apart from the inside, every muscle of his began to burn and to ache. This was the danger of the inert time control he was using. But he had to get to a better position in order to succeed. He turned around. With not even his surroundings, but the laws of physics working on half their strength, he was able to quickly run back to the ladder he had slid down shortly before. Climbing it with hasty movements, he returned to the top of the platform.

 _I need to make it!_

He knew that while he appeared faster from the outside, the time alteration spell made him not any stronger. He needed the best possible timing. So when the front of the crane crashed into the containers below, the backside of it slowly slid to the left. And while it did, it narrowly passed the other crane.

 _Now!_

Kiritsugu jumped and crashed hard into the metal frame, clinging to it while deactivating his magic crest. Now with the grip released on his aching heart, he watched how his previous vantage point collapsed on its full length. After hurling his body over the railing onto the safer platform, he rubbed the sweat off his brow and pushed onwards.

 _I have to leave before he gets any ideas..._

At least Kayneth wouldn't be so bold as to directly cross the battlefield of the Servants, which was now further obstructed by the wreckage. The chance of Saber cleaving casually through his defence was far too high. So when he ran towards the ladder to the ground level, he did that under the impression that he could reach it before things would get even more messy.

"What sorry excuse of a Magus uses guns?", a sneering voice appeared from behind him.

 _He started circling the battlefield even before the construction went down!_

With that realization dawning upon him, Kiritsugu escaped the mercury tentacles swinging after him with a quick jump, drawing his Callico in the same instant. As soon as he found solid ground under his feet, he turned around, firing a volley into the Magus who had used his mercury mystic code as a makeshift elevator to be on eye-level with him. Of course not even one bullet hit, since the tentacles retreated and reformed his shield, but at least it took the immediate pressure from him. Slowly retreating backwards, Kiritsugu carefully waited for the next attack of the enemy Magus.

But instead, more gunshots were audible from behind Kayneth's mercury wall. Shots Kiritsugu was not responsible for.

"Oh, you've brought another pawn", he heard the voice of Kayneth, obviously unharmed by the attack into his back.

 _Maiya! She shouldn't have come down. Well, I can make the best out of it._

Putting away the Callico, he drew his contender. With Kayneth being forced to defend himself from two sides, he shouldn't be able to deflect a high-calibre shot like he did before with the sniper rifle. Kiritsugu fired... and the bullet punched into the mercury, leaving a small hole.

"Urgh... How dare you!"

 _Damn, just grazed him._

Kayneth kept his backward shield, but the front wall collapsed into a plethora of razor sharp tentacles, lunging out for him. The Magus himself was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder, looking thoroughly pissed, but pushed onwards regardless.

 _Time Alter: Double Accel!_

With his heart feeling close to imploding, Kiritsugu scrambled to escape, desperately evading the deadly strikes aimed at him while they were slicing the railings and frameworks around him to pieces.

 _He is trying to push me into a corner._

Kayneth meanwhile elevated himself higher up, mostly to reduce the amount of angles he had to defend himself from, but from Kiritsugu's view it just looked like he wanted to look down upon his cornered prey. At least he could see from there where Maiya stood behind Kayneth, at the edge of the metal platform, firing shots at the back of the Magus. Kiritsugu joined in with his Callico in order to decrease his pressure a little bit.

"You seem quite adept at saving yourself", Kayneth spat out angrily. "How about saving her, then."

 _What?_

And with this, his rear shield slammed down, slicing straight through the steel of the crane construction. And slicing straight through the platform Maiya was standing on. Kiritsugu's racing brain immediately analysed the situation. He saw his companion stumbling when gravity started to pull down the ground under her feet.

 _When I go to Triple Accel, I can get past Kayneth, reach her and... no..._

He instead stopped his time acceleration and opened the contender, ejecting the cartridge in the same motion. With aching heart he watched how the platform and a wide-eyed Maiya dropped out of his view. Even Kayneth, who turned half around expecting Kiritsugu to rush to her safety, just paused for a moment dumbfounded.

 _No_ , Kiritsugu thought again. _If I had saved her, I would have missed my chance for this._

Having reloaded the contender, he aimed at his opponent. The Magus looked at him with confusion in his eyes.

"How could you..."

But then he realized what was about to happen. Kayneth put up his defence again, this time making the mercury contract so much that he could easily defend himself against a rocket launcher. This was exactly what Kiritsugu had hoped him to do. Assured of his victory, he pulled the trigger.

 **Jaime**

Sparks flew as Oathkeeper hacked down on the ruined shield of the Red Viper. Amidst the remnants of the devastated harbour the Westerman and the Dornishman had continued their struggle. Oberyn was pretty damn good, this was something Jaime just had to admit. The knight from Sunspear had proven it in his extremely one-sided duel with the Mountain, and even on this day he was able to keep his distance from the knight of the Kingsguard. No matter how Jaime attacked, the spear was almost always between them, forcing him to fight his way around its pointy tip. But even for the best trickster there came the moment when he runs out of all his last stunts. In this shattered battlefield, Oberyn quickly ran out of room to manoeuvre. Jaime had no such problem. Driven by his honed instincts, he knew only one direction: Forwards. Oathkeeper edged through the air, striking Oberyn's accursed spear away, his shield followed, slamming with full force into the Dornishman. The Red Viper went to his knees, his boots having dug themselves deeply in the ground due to the force of impact. Even on the ground the man was dangerous, but in this split-second, Jaime had a good chance to follow up and finish him.

 _What the-_

In the edge of his view Jaime saw how a large chunk of the platform his Master had saved himself upon was sliced off and came crashing to the ground. Looking up with these unnaturally sharp eyes of his ghost body, he didn't believe what he saw.

 _Is that..._

It was the woman with the glazed eyes alright. The ally of Kiritsugu he had met this day. She was falling together with the platform, out of a height she would never survive from. Jaime readied himself.

 _I can catch her!_

Jaime started to sprint. He just had to jump and intercept her on her way down. Being a ghost had its advantages after all, not just when it came to redecorating the countryside.

 _Urgh..._

Instead a nauseating pain between his right rips made him stumble. Something had struck him in his back.

 _Bastard!_

Whirling around, he found Prince Oberyn there, having darted forward with his spear the instant Jaime had turned his back towards him. Blind with pain and anger, Jaime put the strength of his rotation into his shield, hitting the spearman with all his power. Accompanied by a terrifying metallic crash, he sent the Dornishman flying into a nearby container.

 _I can still-_

He threw his body around, taking up speed again.

Wham.

With a shattering sound, the platform cut-out smashed on the ground and disappeared in a thick cloud of dust. Awestruck, Jaime reduced his speed down to a jog. It didn't matter anymore. He was already too late.

 **Oberyn**

 _Ouch..._

Peeling his body out of the steel frame he had impacted in, Oberyn recollected his memory of this fight. Lannisters had some kind of supernatural knack to rile him up and the Kingslayer was no exception in this regard. But he had to admit, the rumours of the knight's prowess were not understatements. Oberyn knew him from tourneys, but of course a battlefield was something entirely different. And here he had proven to be the superior warrior.

 _At least I got him once... that should be enough to finish him, even though I can't say how long-_

Another gunshot echoed through the ruined docks. This time something like a sixth sense tingled in his guts. Danger, it said. Danger to his Master... no, not quite. Danger to the Command Spells he was chained to. Aghast, Oberyn looked up to the damaged crane which was the battlefield of Kayneth. The Kingslayer was still busy looking at the ruined scenery himself, but Oberyn knew his timeframe was short-lived. Switching into Spirit form, he took a giant leap and flung himself into the air, falling towards the crane in question with great speed. From above he saw his so-called Master lying in a puddle of blood and mercury which had splattered across the metal frames and was dripping to the ground everywhere. It was a truly horrifying sight and yet Oberyn felt that the man was still alive, even though barely. But the stranger in the black jacket was about to end his pain, lowering his gun to point at him.

Grimacing, Oberyn took on physical form again, crashing down in the space between Kayneth and his murderer with insane speed. The man was quick enough though, darting backwards and firing a volley at both the Red Viper and his master. The Dornishman was barely able to bring his shield between them and struck out with his spear. By any logic, it should have killed the attacker, but from his point of view it looked like his human opponent skipped a few seconds in order to jump back a few steps, continuing his onslaught. Oberyn thought about following through. Now since he had a grasp on how fast this bugger was, he was sure he could easily finish him. But the few seconds of battle had drawn unwanted attention from a certain annoying Lannister. In the edge of his view he saw the Kingslayer in the air, approaching quickly. He could have finished this guy, but he doubted he would be able to defend his Master against the superpowered knight. Cursing, Oberyn jumped backwards, picked the motionless body up and flung himself down. The Kingslayer reached the platform a split-second thereafter, but at this time Oberyn had already reached the edge of the docks, manoeuvring his way out with a series of quick jumps.

 **Irisviel**

The silver-haired woman walked amidst the wreckage of what once had been the docks of Fuyuki. Sliced and crushed metal debris was everywhere, forcing her to step carefully in order to not cut herself into pieces at the sharp edges. One crane and a large part of another had come down, the shockwaves of the clashing Servants had burst open the ground and sliced many of the containers into pieces. It was a cruel sight of senseless destruction.

Approaching the damaged crane, she watched how Saber jumped to the ground. The knight bore a troubled expression, but with hanging shoulders and having put away his sword, he looked like he had decided the fight was over. In addition to this, when he turned his back towards her, Iri saw that his brightly shining armor was drenched in red above his right hip.

"You are hurt!", she called out.

Jaime blinked, looking down as if he had just now realized how it looked like.

"Just a minor scratch, nothing to worry about", he said with coarse voice.

"Just allow me to-", without further ado, Iri put her hand towards his back and sealed the wound with a simple spell. "This will do."

"I... you have my thanks", he said, looking a bit startled, but grateful all the same.

Kiritsugu came climbing down the ladder as well. And yet Saber never waited for his Master, but just walked off, starting to lift some of the largest chunks and heaving them to the side. When Kiritsugu arrived as well, he joined him with a seemingly empty expression. But Irisviel knew better. He did his best to swallow his feelings, especially around them, but his pain was clear to see.

Having cleared the debris, Ser Jaime turned around and tried to block her way, but she knew what she had to do.

"You don't need to see this", he said gravely.

Wordlessly she passed him, avoiding his half-hearted attempt at catching her. Kiritsugu stood there, looking down at the corpse of the woman he knew far better than she did. Maiya's body was mangled, one of her legs twisted in an unhealthy way and the back of her head shattered on the stone where she lay with the face looking up to the stars. Iri silently took the arm of her husband and squeezed it softly, knowing that each word would just increase the pain.

"I... I am sorry", Saber said sullenly.

"She knew the risks. It is nothing you have to be sorry for", Kiritsugu said icily.

Having seen enough, he turned away, carefully freeing himself from Iri's embrace. He lightened a cigarette, struggling to keep composure.

"Saber. Bring Iri to the Einzbern castle. We meet up there after I have finished business with Kayneth."

"You are going to face him alone?", the knight asked aghast. "You need me to deal with the Red Viper! I promise, I will finish it."

"Maiya and I had made preparations to deal with him. With Kayneth being critically injured, finishing it should pose no problem."

Ser Jaime sighed, shaking his head. Iri could see that he was just trying do be considerate, but she also had enough grasp of the situation that she knew it would just hurt more.

"What about her?", he asked the question she dreaded the most.

"I will need to dispose the body."

Grimacing, Iri decided to defuse the situation. Kiritsugu needed time for himself, lingering any longer was unnecessary. Carefully, she took the knight at his arm.

"Come, Saber. Let's go."

Jaime looked like he was about to object, but luckily he swallowed down his words. Making a short bow, the knight turned away and left. Irisviel followed him, but not without a last glance back at her husband. Kiritsugu remained there, a lone figure smoking his cigarette and looking up at the sky. It pained her to see him like this. To see how he was shaken up by the price he had to pay for fulfilling his dream. And to imagine how he would look like when the time came to say his final goodbyes. With thoughts like these she really hoped that the future with Ilya would be enough to heal his wounds.

 **Waver**

 _Ugh... heavy._

A muscled arm rested on Waver's shoulder when the terrible giant used him as a crutch to get out of the black car.

"I sincerely hope to see you tomorrow, too", the old man said through the opened window, his head red like a tomato.

"Of course!", Rider shouted. "Nothing in the seven hells can stop me! There are still hundreds of stories I haven't told yet. Better get yourself a singer to write them down. I am sure they sell good in this world of yours where there isn't anybody who knows of the Demon of the Trident."

"I will keep that in mind", Fujimura chuckled. "Good night, you two. Have a good rest!"

And with that the black car disappeared into the night. Only Waver and this Servant of his remained. At least these dubious people brought them back to the house of the Mackenzies. Waver wouldn't have liked another ride with this horse of Robert, especially after the king finally managed to be in his cups.

"I don't understand it. I thought you can't get drunk?", Waver asked with unabashed frustration.

"I'm not drunk", Robert interjected with hurt pride. "Just a little tipsy, you hear me! I've spent a large enough chunk of my lifetime drunk, I know the difference."

Waver helped him step towards the door of the little house, feeling angry and helpless at the same time.

"You're body is supposed to be that of a Heroic Spirit! You are a ghost unsusceptible to any harm from the mortal plane of existence. And yet you have somehow managed to intoxicate yourself!", he couldn't help but yell at him, uncaring of whether he woke up anybody or not.

"In my defence, this squinty-eyed people has quite some strong stuff around. What the heck even is sake? I guess I should ask Raiga-dono tomorrow."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

The so-called king grimaced while they were entering the house.

"No reason to get so riled up about it", he grumbled softly.

Realizing that waking up his hosts was not that good an idea after all, Waver swallowed his anger and silently withdrew to his room. Having arrived there he locked the door and threw himself onto his bed. His aching body reminded him of how tired he was after a day of running across the city. The muscular giant meanwhile made a crash-landing on the carpet. Waver thought for a second to go fetch him the sleeping bag he had bought just in case he was unable to find a roof in Fuyuki to sleep under, but he glumly decided that Rider had brought that upon himself.

"So that's it? That's your plan for tomorrow? Drinking until you can no more?", Waver asked icily.

"Probably", Rider replied, suddenly a bit more seriously. "But I need to pull your head out of your ass first. Relax a bit! Enjoy life while you still can. It is bloody short enough, I can tell you."

„But the Grail War-", Waver began, only to get promptly interrupted.

„- is not the most important event in your life. I grant you, thinking about going through with the fighting is admirable, but the way I see it, this Grail affair is fraught with trouble. Certainly it was too good to be true..."

 _Too good to be true? Possibly. And yet, what shall I do? Return to England, saying that my Servant lost interest in obtaining the Grail? What a pitiful story... I will be the laughing stock of the Clocktower._

"So that's why you just bury your head in the sand and try to ignore it."

"Any problem with it? I already told you, I have no interest in tainting my hands with the blood of these children."

"And yet you see no problem in letting them die", Waver objected.

He heard a grunting sound from below.

"I'm not sure I get your meaning...", Robert said carefully, a hint of suspicion in his voice.

"These children are not the only people summoned. I just thought... somebody else could prove less scrupulous."

Waver heard the scraping sound of the giant turning on the carpet.

"I don't like the direction of this conversation...", he said darkly.

"Me neither", Waver admitted, even though he thought it was a direction his Servant was just too aware of. "Well, chances are you won't remember any of it tomorrow anyway."

"No", Robert grunted. "I always remember. It was always like this. It's... it's my curse."

* * *

Author's Notes: I know I have played with some expectations here. After the last chapter you all wanted a glorious fight between Jaime and Oberyn and yet this was all about Kiritsugu, Kayneth and Maiya. But rest assured, I will not leave this duo at that...

I also have to admit that I was and still am a little wary about contrasting the events at the docks with Team Waver. Especially since I risk taking away the punch of what I did to Maiya here. I am sad that she isn't about to play an active role in this story and I am very aware that sacrificing here comes with its implications. I just sincerely hope that with the next chapter I will be able to assure you that I haven't done that for the drama, but for the very real repercussions it will have upon the story. I promise, she will not be forgotten!


	6. Chapter 6 - Assault on Einzbern Castle

Uh... my deepest apologies for the long delay. Real life was busy, very busy. But I used the Christmas and New Years Holidays to wrap this chapter up. So Rejoice! Or despair! Whatever you prefer...

* * *

Chapter 6 - Assault on Einzbern Castle

 **Kayneth**

His whole body felt numb when he opened his eyes, looking up at a cream-colored ceiling. His memories were fuzzy. Someone had accepted his challenge and Kayneth thought it was the Einzbern homunculus. And yet he was attacked by shameless assassins using crude firearms.

 _To think such a prestigious house has sunken so low as to hire thugs and mercenaries..._

And yet it was even more embarrassing to think that a high lord of the Clocktower could fall prey to them. A warm, stabbing pain crawled up his bowels. He remembered. He lost. He was shot through his shield and blackened out. His Mystic Code, mocked and rendered useless by a crude bullet.

 _No..._

He listened to his ragged breathing. He was shot only once, that he remembered clearly. When the second shot came, he was prepared for it. His entire defense was focused on taking it. And he remembered that at least in that, he was actually successful.

 _How?_

He had broken down, his whole body in agony as if exploding. He had been torn apart from the inside.

 _A curse far more insidious than I had expected..._

But at least he was alive. No matter how horrible his injuries were, the numbness he felt now were just the lingering after effects of strong healing magic.

 _Sola-ui..._

As soon as his thoughts turned towards his precious fiancée, the redhead stepped into his view with a pained expression. She looked down on him with what seemed like worry to him.

"You... you healed me", Kayneth realized.

"Indeed. And it was troublesome work at that. I don't know what kind of Mystic Code has struck you down, but it somehow managed to tear through your nervous system."

"So he used the mana flow between me and Volumen Hydrargyrum to create a feedback impulse?", his eyes widened in shock. "But that wouldn't have only affected my nerves..."

Sola-ui gave a sad smile.

"Nerves heal, Magic Crests don't."

The words cut so deep he felt like he was just shot a second time. This accursed bullet had affected his Magic Crest, the priceless heritage of nine generations. The legacy of both his ancestors and himself was at stake. He clenched his fists, trying to lift himself up to see the damage for himself. But the way he was abruptly stopped in his tracks was not because of the numbness in his body. Thick leather straps tied him to the bed. His head was spinning, conflicting thoughts confused him even more. His entire world had been put on its head and now came this as just another startling revelation.

"What is the meaning of this?", he gasped in astonishment.

"Can't you tell?", Sola-ui asked back. "Your entire Magic Crest was destroyed beyond repair. The way it is, you will never be able to use magic again."

He meant the shackles and yet this confirmation of what he had dreaded the most drowned out every thought about his current situation.

 _The entire... every single part..._

Only a few days ago he had taken pity on the Magi in Lancer's world and now he himself was cursed with ordinariness. He ground his teeth in order to stop himself from crying out his agony, but the despair drove tears into his eyes regardless. He was Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi. His entire life, everything he lived for, all for naught. What kind of pitiful existence was left for him?

 _I should have died on that crane._

"Please don't cry, Kayneth. This must not be the end. There is still hope", Sola-ui purred soothingly.

 _Is there?_

He looked at her questioningly through watery eyes. He was completely at a loss about what his beautiful fiancée meant... the fiancée he dreaded to have lost as well, now that her family had no reason to marry her off to a useless cripple.

"Remember the grail. Remember why we are fighting", her voice sounded like sweet honey. "If you want your magic back, all you need to do is simply to wish for it after our victory."

She was right. Kayneth had never a wish to begin with, only participated for the sake of the prestige coming with obtaining the lost magic of the Einzberns. Now that he was in dire need of it himself, it shone upon his face like a ray of hope.

"Yes. Yes, yes, we can do this! All I need to do is defeat those pesky other Masters..."

Sola-ui's brows formed a frown.

" _Lancer_ can do this", she stated mercilessly, slowly undoing the strap binding his right arm. "I'm afraid that _you_ are in no condition to win for yourself. So..."

Having freed the hand, she held it up, the command spells clearly for him to see. Her own hands felt soft and warm on his pale, numb skin.

"You cannot be serious...", Kayneth whispered.

"You must see the logic in that, my dear", she gave a generous smile. "I already supply Lancer's mana, but I am not his Master. To fight for you, to fight in your stead, I just need those three magic tokens..."

"Don't be ridiculous", his whisper turned darker. "There is no need for you to... to endanger yourself like this."

Immediately after Kayneth said those words, Lancer stepped to Sola-ui's side and into his view. He couldn't tell how much of the conversation he had witnessed, but his insufferably smug smile didn't give him much hope. Kayneth narrowed his eyes.

"I'm afraid I am forced to side with your dear betrothed here", Oberyn said. "You are in no condition to fight. And having such a skilled healer at my side sure could make a difference."

"You...", Kayneth snarled. "You dare to speak like this after you allowed this to happen to me?"

The knight looked taken aback.

"Now you do me a great injustice, Lord El-Melloi. After all, I interrupted my fight to get you out of that madman's reach. But don't be worried", he gave a cocky smile. "The Kingslayer is a corpse on feet. A single scratch of my spear is a death sentence for even the strongest foes."

Kayneth didn't allow himself to be swayed by this double-tongued fool's words. He kept his expression stern.

"She doesn't need command spells to heal you."

"A Master in this fight is supposed to do more than standing behind his familiar", Oberyn interjected easily. "And the command spells are important tools to turn the tide of battle when things become either unexpected or unfavorable."

"And you don't need to worry about your safety then. After I have shown myself to be Lancer's Master, there is no reason for anyone to target you", Sola-ui explained, soothingly patting the back of his hand. "You can just sit back in this room and watch us win for you, protected by your luckily self-sufficient magical fortress you have created here."

The Magus snorted derisively. He knew that his fortress was impregnable. But he still remained wary of that bastard's intentions. Letting him loose, especially binding him to the woman he always spoke so sickeningly courteously with... everything about it sounded like a trap.

"Don't you trust me, Kayneth? Me, the woman you are going to marry?"

He gave a weary sigh.

"I do... I just..."

 _I don't trust this slimy bastard..._

While he was glaring coldly at Prince Oberyn, the hands holding his own one tightened.

"I think you are not quite aware of your situation", Sola-ui spoke, suddenly with a lot more ice in her voice.

He indeed got a lot more aware of the shackles that bound him to the bed.

"As a spiritual healer without a magic crest of my own, I am in no position to remove someone's command spells without his consent", she still smiled, but Kayneth got the impression that the temperature suddenly dropped quite a bit.

"Interesting", Oberyn commented cheerfully. "Pray tell, what if there is nobody to give or withhold that consent?"

"Well, then it is just a matter of extracting them from a dead nervous system. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean the death of the original owner. You see, it is totally sufficient to just disconnect them from the will of the Master."

"You mean, disconnecting the hand from its arm?", Oberyn asked with the curiosity of a true Magus.

"Just so...", was Sola-ui's mischievous reply.

Kayneth stared at the two in utter disbelief. His mind was blank. This was more than simple teasing. It was a betrayal in the making.

"Stop with the inappropriate jokes", Kayneth demanded with coarse voice.

Oberyn looked at him with badly feigned innocence while Sola-ui looked down with a cold stare. She then fingered around the hand she was still holding. She gripped his little finger with one and the rest with the other hand. She started to bend it. Kayneth gritted his teeth as the pressure increased and the pain crawled from his finger through his arm, sending shivers through his whole body. Until it could withstand no more and a terrifying crack announced its disconnection from the rest of his hand. Whether it was broken or just dislocated he could not say, all he knew was that both the pain and his shock about the act itself was mind-numbing. With fresh tears pouring from his eyes, he gave in to her demand.

The procedure went fast, but not necessarily less painful. Sola-ui phased her own hand into the back of his one in order to extract the command spells. An act that felt like a dozen tiny scalpels were cutting open all of his hand's veins at once. And after she had finished her work, confirming the validity of the fresh red marks she gained, a dreadful silence set in. At least she still had the decency to heal his pinky before she and Lancer moved to the living room, leaving him tied to the bed all alone. With more than enough time to ponder about what treachery he had just witnessed.

 _Lancer_ , he thought with disgust. _I don't know what he did to seduce her, but she wouldn't dare under normal circumstances. That poisonous creature, he... those stares... that must be the key. He is a Magus with a penchant for potions after all. He put her under some kind of spell... yes, that's it... This bastard somehow forced some potion down her throat and made her his slave. That's the only way... I mean... she would never... no... never..._

The doubts were still there. He had to admit that she seemed never all that convinced of their marriage. But he was still sure that given enough time she would have learned the value of being married to a prestigious Clocktower Lord. At least if he somehow managed to get out of his current predicament.

His thoughts were soon interrupted though. At once the lights were killed, leaving him in utter darkness. In the first split-second after this he was just annoyed that the two went from threats of mutilation down to childish pranks, but his suspicion was immediately proved wrong as a shiver went through not only his body, but the entire room. From the living room he heard a sudden outcry of Lancer: "Sola-ui!", followed by a shriek of hers and the sound of shattering glass. Panic set in.

"What is happening?", Kayneth demanded, frantically struggling in his shackles. "What is-"

A distant, but constantly increasing roar drowned out his questions. His eyes were still a far cry from being adjusted to the darkness, but amidst the utter blackness he could make out some kind of movement. And with his struggles having died down, he could feel the unusual lack of pressure on his breast, it were only the shackles which kept him on the bed.

 _I am falling!_ , he realized aghast. _No. The entire room is falling. How-_

The movements became more sudden and all at once, the entire ceiling came down upon the tied up Magus, crushing every thought of escape.

 **Kiritsugu**

With only the faint glow of few distant stars in the black sky above him, Kiritsugu Emiya stood atop one of the still rising skyscrapers in Fuyuki's Shinto district, looking down on the carnage below. He heard the screams and later the sobbing of the passer-bys even up here as the Hyatt hotel came down in a flaming inferno. It was hell down there. A cloud of dust and ashes was rolling through the streets, covering everything and everyone. A monument of malicious destruction, a monument of the atrocities the Magus Killer wanted to put an end to.

This was an important step towards it. And yet, why was his hand holding the trigger still shaking? After all, sacrifices had to be made. He only had to make sure that they were not made in vain. All of them. He had learned that a single misstep born out of misplaced feelings can lead to disastrous consequences. Maiya knew that well. While they had worked together, they both lived after that principle, always making sure to accomplish their goals without any hesitation. Therefore he was also sure that she had jumped to his rescue because their goal was dependant on his survival due to him being the only eligible Master of Saber. Every other explanation for her abandoning her position was wishful thinking...

Supporting himself with his left hand on the railings, he couldn't help but stare at the other hand that had pulled the trigger. He knew he did the right thing, Maiya had made sure to let him cripple Kayneth, even giving her life for that. Allowing short-sighted morals to interfere would have been mockery of her sacrifice. He could not allow the possibility of him escaping. After all, like he was the only eligible Master for Saber, Kayneth was the only one for Lancer. That sure didn't make it any easier, but it helped him deal with the consequences of tearing down this impregnable fortress. Kiritsugu forced a wry smile on his lips as he looked up.

"You see", he whispered to the sky. "I haven't gone soft!"

His whole body trembled as the irony hit him. Sirens echoed through the streets below, true heroes arriving in order to fight the flames and rescue what was still able to be rescued while he stood here above, judging his work as the villain that was able to do what was needed to be done. A sick joke... and yet not one without purpose. Kiritsugu gritted his teeth as he averted his gaze.

"Seven billion people...", he whispered in pain.

 **Arya**

"You should have stopped him!", Arya declared angrily, unable of any other thought as soon as she had made sense of his words.

"I'm afraid I only learned of his intention after he had already pulled the trigger", Kotomine explained while he was with his knees on the floor, working to set up some outlandish looking gramophone-like device with a grim expression.

After witnessing the duel in the harbor district the two of them had split up to tail both enemies. While the priest kept observing Emiya, Arya followed the Kingslayer and that Targaryen homunculus to the outskirts of the Fuyuki forest. The particularities of the class she was summoned in even allowed her to effortlessly slip through the bounded field unnoticed. But after the two had disappeared in an awkwardly pretentious looking castle Arya had to return to the hotel where Kirei soon showed up as well. His way of filling her in with the deeds of that monster Kiritsugu Emiya involved switching on the TV and showing her the latest breaking news about an apparent terrorist attack right here in Fuyuki. At least 200 people died in the collapsed building. Two hundred innocents dragged to a fiery death only to kill one man.

"Then you should have killed him anyway! We don't know what he plans next!", Arya pleaded.

"And what if he called for Saber's aid?", Kotomine asked back unfazed.

"Then you could have called me!"

An amused grin appeared on the priest's face. Given the circumstances, it crept Arya out.

"And then you would have heroically defeated the Kingslayer?"

The girl groaned. He was mocking her. And the worst part was that he was right. She had no way to deal with the Kingslayer on her own. She bit her lip in frustration.

"But we have to do something."

"I _am_ doing something. I am contacting Tokiomi in order to hear what he has to say and form a plan."

"With that?", she pointed at the hideous monstrosity of a machine that he was tinkering with.

Kirei gave a resigned sigh.

"For a man so afraid of modern technology Tokiomi proves surprisingly creative when it comes to avoiding it."

"This is a phone?", for a second the gravity of their situation seemed forgotten, the sight was just too absurd for Arya to handle.

"Supposedly", was Kotomine Kirei's blunt answer.

The moment he had spoken, the weird apparatus sprung to life by making cackling noises. It then screeched and the sounds mutated until they sounded like the echo of a familiar voice.

"This toy of yours sounds broken", that voice sneered.

Arya rolled her eyes, it was Joffrey.

"Much the opposite, your Grace", Tohsaka replied. "Good evening, Kirei."

"Good evening to you as well", the priest answered stiffly. "I believe you are aware of the latest happenings?"

"The Magus Killer struck", was his solemn observation. "My familiars were well aware of El-Melloi's fortification in the Hyatt hotel. That someone would dare to tear it down with such crude methods..."

"Who cares about the traps?", Arya snapped. "He killed countless people!"

Kirei made a dubious expression in reply to her outburst, but he didn't seem to scold her yet. It was Joffrey who derided her interjection:

"You are the only one who cares so much for lowly peasants..."

"We should care as well, your Grace", surpringly, Tokiomi came to her assistance. "If the Grail War is revealed to the public due to one man's folly, this affair may become a lot more complicated. Risei said so as well when he contacted me a while ago."

Arya observed Kotomine's reaction to the mention of his father. She found it strange that the old man would contact his son's mentor before his son. But he gave no indication for how he felt about this. For all she knew he couldn't care less.

"What is his opinion as the Church observer?", he asked instead.

"As the neutral observer he is forced to admit that Emiya hid his traces well. He left enough clues for the police to assume that a militant group in opposition to the modernization of Shinto is behind the attack. A little far-fetched, but still flawless in execution. And since he is still focused on other Masters, Risei is in no position to intervene."

"You can't be serious!", Arya blurted out.

"As a fellow human being however", Tokiomi continued strongly. "... he is greatly disturbed by his actions and wants him to be taken care of."

"He wants us to take care of him", Kirei observed.

"Indeed."

'Us'. That meant Arya and Joffrey. Arya grimaced, not knowing what was worse: Cooperating with this monster or their chances to actually win.

"You both should know that Assassin has identified Emiya's Servant as a certain Kingslayer", Kirei announced in a voice that sounded nearly casual.

"Uncle Jaime?", Joffrey seemed aghast on the other end of the line.

"No doubt about that", Arya exclaimed, just so that this bastard wouldn't even get the chance to put her word into question.

Kirei however looked thoughtful.

"I was told that this man is a formidable opponent."

"He... he is, actually. At least back when he wasn't a cripple yet", Joffrey's voice cracked, showing that he was not very confident in his assumption.

 _A cripple? The Kingslayer?_

Arya must have been thrown out of the loop for too long a time. She never heard of the Kingslayer having been crippled before. And she couldn't suppress the smirk forming on her lips. The many-faced god seemed to have taken interest in the case of her lost friends after all.

"Your Grace, how would you judge our chances against him?", Tokiomi asked the boy.

Arya imagined the pale face of that cruel fool. Even if they indeed worked together, there was no way they could touch him and he should know that very well.

"I... he... well, Ser Jaime is of my Kingsguard... that means... he has vowed not to harm me."

Knowing fully well that the others were not able to see them, Kirei gave Arya a dubious glare. She couldn't help but shrug. Technically he was right. But that man _was_ called Kingslayer for a reason...

"You think he would surrender the Grail to you?"

"If I order him to...", he himself sounded not very convinced of that.

After a little pause Tokiomi continued.

"In any case, for the secrecy of magic and this war, it is our duty to focus on Emiya from now on."

"He will likely meet up with the Kingslayer in that castle I've followed him to", Arya thought loudly.

"Yes, the Einzbern residence", Tokiomi agreed. "As the representative of the Einzberns it is to be expected that he set up his base there."

"Emiya's Servant was wounded by Lancer", Kirei added. "According to Assassin, the weapon used was likely coated in a poison that will severely weaken Saber. This is a good opportunity to strike before they find a way to fight it off."

Arya may have not recognized Oberyn Martell during their first meeting, but while observing the battle and hearing his name, she started to remember stories about the Prince of Dorne. It is quite telling for his infamy that they had reached her ears far in the North even though the Starks had barely anything to do with these southern rulers. In any case, she knew of his preference for poisoning foes and told Kirei just that.

"It is still a risky move", Tokiomi observed. "But unfortunately necessary."

"Given the particular differences in tactics between our Servants, it may be beneficial to divide our attention", Kirei said casually, too casually for something that gave Arya a lot of relieve. "With Archer focusing on the frontal assault, Assassin and I can take care of the Einzbern Masters."

"I like this plan!", Joffrey announced suddenly, having unexpectedly found most of his usual vigor again. "I can't remain here like a sitting duck. Father has shown me the folly of that. I need to go out into the field, where my true strength lies! Yes, I will head out and show them how a true king finishes a war! In the meantime the wolf girl can crawl through the meadows for all I care."

Arya groaned:

"Why does it suddenly sound like a bad idea when he says it?"

"How dare you!", the boy king growled immediately.

The priest gave her an admonishing look, but addressed his mentor instead, apparently in order to change the subject quickly.

"Also given the particular infamy of Emiya, it may be advisable for you not to engage in battle yourself and remain here."

"Yes, you don't want to stain these expensive garments of yours, don't you?", Joffrey sneered, his attention successfully diverted.

"You will be fine, facing Emiya on your own?", Tohsaka asked with a hint of concern. "This man has not an ounce of pride of an ordinary Magus after all."

Kirei looked away from the gramophone-like thing, his face deep in thought.

"He will find that I am no ordinary Magus either", he said after some pause.

Tokiomi seemed not convinced, but the priest soon cut the connection, remaining silent.

 _That man seems to trouble him..._

She recalled the interest he expressed in learning his motives. That was more than mere curiosity, there was something in this monster that fascinated Kirei somehow. Arya would be more than glad to get rid of Emiya just to stop the priest from giving her the creeps with this subject. And now since there were only the two of them in the dark hotel room, she needed to get him out of that suffocating silence with another one.

"You are really sure this assault is a good idea? I can't think the Kingslayer gives a fuck about his vow not to just gut Joffrey then and there."

Kirei looked up, forced out of his previous train of thought. It took him a couple of seconds to form a reply.

"I am not that foolish to believe that Archer has a chance of actual victory", the priest mused. "And neither is Tohsaka, just so you know. Archer serves our purpose well enough by creating a diversion, nothing more."

Arya gave a vicious nod in understanding. The plan turned out to be to her liking as well.

 **Kiritsugu**

Screams echoed through corridors of red stone. Screams which seemed to be a surprisingly regular occurrence at this place Kiritsugu found himself in. Screams of a man who got his tongue forcibly removed. Screams of another one who got his eyes burned out. Screams of yet another one who got his hand chopped off. And all of it witnessed by that silver-haired corpse sitting atop a huge mountain of molten blades, piled up in a way to vaguely resembling a hideous throne. Kiritsugu mused that Jubstacheit would look like this man after a decade-long abstinence from shaving, trimming of fingernails and maybe even taking baths, more likely than not. And the corpse smiled. A smile of pure, cruel amusement.

"I choose fire!"

The victim was an old man in grey armor, looking fearsome and proud like a wolf. But bound in chains, the flames engulfed him, melting the steel that was supposed to protect him, cooking the man inside. Another wolf was forced to watch, a ragged and feral one. his only binding was a noose around his neck. His beacon of hope was a sword placed on the ground, the flames reflecting on the otherworldly pale blade. It was clearly out of reach and yet he struggled and fought, crawling forward inch by inch while the noose slowly tightened. Kiritsugu looked into the face of someone who knew that his cause was doomed and yet stopped caring, continuing his battle against all reason, simply because he decided that it was worth it to follow his course of defiance to the bitter end.

When his eyes opened again, he found himself back in the red castle, this time in a corridor, guarding a chamber alongside another white knight. Screams and sobbing filled the air.

"Aren't we supposed to protect the Queen as well?", Kiritsugu spoke with the voice of Jaime.

"We are", the other knight replied. "But not from him."

The metal of his gauntlet clicked softly as Jaime Lannister clenched his fist.

"Your Grace", his voice spoke up again, in a way that reminded Kiritsugu awfully of the way he spoke to Iri.

In front of him was a woman with silver hair and purple eyes. Her hair caught Kiritsugu off-guard for a short moment, but her face was nothing like Iri's. Her features were gaunt and the bones of her cheeks were slightly visible under her wrinkled skin as she looked down upon her plate. She must have been a great beauty when she was younger, but now she looked more like a pale ghost with hollow eyes, looking but not really seeing anything. The maid next to her seemed distraught as well, twitching nervously as she urged her to eat her food.

"Your Grace", the voice said again, soft, but determined.

Now she looked up as if ripped out of her thoughts. She seemed a little confused about where she was.

"Ah, Ser Jaime", she blinked. "I never noticed you entering."

"I was here the entire time, your Grace. Is everything alright?", a foolish question, but Kiritsugu thought to know that he just wanted to stir up conversation.

She averted her eyes again, looking down upon her untouched food instead. Her hand made a feeble attempt at taking the two-pronged fork next to the table, but her fingers refrained from bending around the handle. It was then Kiritsugu noticed faint bruises on her arm that she had tried to cover with a long-sleeved gown. When his eyes moved up to take a better look at her face, there were none to be found there, but there was a large red spot next to her neck.

 _Bitemarks?_

"Didn't you have had guard duty yesterday night?", she suddenly asked out of nowhere.

Jaime hesitated a bit.

"I had", he replied solemnly.

"Most unusual. You must have gotten little sleep between your shifts", she observed with sincere pity.

"We are indeed a little short on manpower since Prince Rhaegar-", he began, but stopped mid-sentence. "Well, I'm just fulfilling my duties, your Grace."

"Duty...", she echoed in wonder, her gaze seeming more distant by the second. "Yes, duty is important. We are all bound by it, aren't we?"

There was it again, the hesitation.

"If you say so, your Grace."

"Duty..." she repeated again, her voice barely a whisper.

Softly, metal clicked once again.

"Duty!", the corpse's voice shouted, overturning itself. "A duty to the king! Have you forsaken it as well? Like those traitors out there?"

"I beg you, your Grace, be reasonable!", a feeble voice answered. "What you propose is an atrocity for nothing but spite!"

A big-bellied man in green and white stood in front of the hideous monstrosity of a throne the corpse was perched on. Reasoning, jesting, threatening and begging at last. In the end, a golden chain thrown to the ground was deciding his fate. He was the next to burn.

"The traitors want my city, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat."

A man in a green hood bowed and took his leave. And with a clicking sound, Jaime Lannister's fists clenched again. And the sound of metal turned into a sound of war. Thick smoke covered the sky. Screams echoed through the streets of a large city. And Jaime Lannister tracked down the hooded man who was clad in a soldier's surcoat. The events unfolded in a blur. His hand went to his sword hilt and a second later the man was struck down, the red soaking through his surcoat and staining the golden chain around his neck. When Jaime returned to the throne room, the corpse king seemed still oblivious, despite the knight not having even bothered to sheath his blood-coated sword.

"Is this the traitor's blood?"

"No", Jaime answered truthfully.

"Then you should go find him. Find them all. They shall burn!", he began to ramble. "It should start every moment. And then... I will raise from the ashes, yes. Let them burn! Let them burn!"

He only stopped after Jaime slit his throat. And even then, he still tried to press some choked words out of it before he collapsed and tumbled down the stairs of the throne. Jaime watched him fall, silently, and then watched him collapse on the ground as his blood run down aforementioned stairs, silently. There was no denying in what he did. The blood stained his sword, his gilded armor and the white cloak he was dragging behind him. And yet it was also staining the throne, having spewed upon the bent, molten and misshapen swords it was made of. Breathing heavily, he took a step backwards and then another. Before he had realized it, he himself had collapsed on the throne, staring at the drenched blade in his hands as if he had problems to process just what he did.

"Let them burn!", those words haunted him.

"Let them burn!", they always rang in his ears.

"Let them burn!", they weren't the voice of the corpse king anymore, they intermingled with someone else's.

"Let them burn!", a woman's voice was declaring in cold fury.

Warm tears ran down his face as a golden hand pressed upon the throat of the person he used to love.

"Let them burn!", she repeated madly.

Smoke, the clash of arms and screams were audible outside. The sounds of war in every age. And here he was, in a deadly embrace with a woman of golden hair and green eyes, a face that used to be his spitting image.

"Let... them... burn!", she demanded one last time.

And with the moment the light of her eyes vanished, a black shadow swept upon them, accompanied by a feral cry of beasts long forgotten.

It was then Kiritsugu opened his eyes. His own eyes. He found himself slumped down over the laptop running security footage. Having set himself up in the pretentiously large dining room of the Einzbern castle, he actually wanted to monitor the surveillance cameras.

 _I must have dozed off._

He couldn't afford the luxury of sleep, not in a Grail War where every moment could prove decisive. Not with what was at stake. And yet... he had seen things from his Servant's life. From that world that wasn't Earth. The information learned from it may prove useful in the future. In this moment, the door opened and none other than Saber himself entered, wearing the black suit Iri had outfitted him with.

"My apologies if I'm intruding", he announced his entrance.

"Not at all", Kiritsugu leaned back in his chair. "What is it?"

Saber grimaced slightly.

"I just thought you need someone to talk to."

"Not really...", Kiritsugu grunted evasively.

"I said you need someone, not that you wanted someone."

Saber didn't wait for his reaction, he just helped himself to a chair.

"Since your return you simply shut yourself in here. I don't think that's a sign for everything being alright", he continued, having folded his hands pensively on his chest.

"I'm just being cautious", Kiritsugu waved towards the laptop, brushing aside that he slipped up a little earlier.

"As prudent as this may sound, we... you lost an ally."

Kiritsugu ground his teeth. He knew what Saber was going for, but it hurt nevertheless.

"She knew the risk. And this _is_ supposed to be a war after all. All we can do to honour Maiya's sacrifice is to do everything we can to win the Grail."

The knight nodded.

"I still regret that there was so little time working together with her. What kind of a person was she?", he then asked carefully.

"I don't think I am the right person to answer this", Kiritsugu admitted. "I doubt anyone other than herself is."

Saber frowned.

"That's curious. Forgive my boldness, but you two seemed close."

"We were just... working together."

"Sure... If working together looked like this in the White Tower, then the Knight of Flowers would have-", Saber stopped himself from finishing the sentence in reaction to the glare Kiritsugu shot him. "My apologies. I didn't mean to deride your... partnership. I was just curious. How did you learn to know her?"

Kiritsugu leaned back. He saw no harm in telling Saber, but he was in no mood for telling stories.

"It's not a very amusing tale, be assured of that", he began evasively. "I just found her in some hellhole of a civil war, where they made use of her for clearing mines and... worse. Come to think of it, I only made use of her as well."

"Did you force her to accompany us?", Saber asked with a frown.

"No. I asked and she came. But given that there was nothing holding her back..."

"Then that means she simply had nothing better to do", Saber interjected defiantly. "Or that she simply liked to stick around you. Decide for yourself what you like better. In any case, it was her decision to join this messy hunt."

He wondered. There was some kernel of truth in what he said, but he couldn't deny that he still saw that shell-shocked girl in front of his eyes, the girl that had seen things that made her forget how to be human. Helping people like her seemed like a natural part of his aspirations... and yet she was never able to truly settle down and leave her past behind. Wherever he hid her, wherever he made her live, she was never able to adjust. Therefore she 'stuck around' as Saber put it. She became something of an apprentice... then a partner... and then...

 _I made use of her. There is no denying. Because I thought it would make things easier, when..._

He gulped. Saber looked thoughtful as well.

 _And in the end, she died out of a sense of duty._

"I should have brought a drink, shouldn't I?", the knight mused, forcing him out of his thoughts. "Then we could have raised a toast to lost friends."

"No. We need to be sober for the night", Kiritsugu looked back at the screen. There were still no movements in sight.

Saber sighed.

"Alright. If you excuse me, I'm going to get a little fresh air before resuming my patrol. It is awfully hot in here."

The Master found that a little strange, due to the ineffective heating in so large a structure, it was actually a little chilly in here. Despite that, he nodded and watched the Servant raise. The man seemed still unhappy with how the conversation went and left without another word, leaving Kiritsugu alone to contemplate on their further strategy in the Grail War.

 **Jaime**

When he stepped out onto the battlements of Einzbern castle a fresh nightly breeze greeted him. Taking a deep breath, he wandered along them and watched over the dense forest that seemed to surround them on all sides.

 _Another tactical disadvantage. The trees close to the walls need to be cut down so that archers can take aim at the enemy._

He had to chuckle about his own observation. He wasn't an Archer, was he? And for approaching enemies there was a Boundary Field to alarm them. And then there was the minuscule chance that they would get into a siege.

"Huh?"

He saw a white figure standing a dozen meters away, leaning over the railings and staring into the distance.

"Irisviel?", Jaime whispered softly to himself.

 _Is no one in this castle using the night to sleep?_

He hadn't forgotten about his promise. Iri's role in this sick game... Kiritsugu will have to answer for it. And yet he let it slide for this night. That man had already lost his little affair and poking into the wound with another quarrel was the last thing he needed. Whether he liked it or not, this bastard was still his liege lord. He shook that thought out of his head and decided to join her.

"Hello there", he called out to announce his approaching. "What drives you out into the cold at this hour, your Grace?"

She looked aside, an amused smile on her lips.

"I'm just watching the city, thinking."

He joined her, leaning against the battlements just like she did. The lights of Fuyuki were visible in the distance, emitting a bright aura into sky that drove the stars away as if those artificial lights dared to mimic the sunrise.

"And you can even see the stars out here!", he pointed up to the unfamiliar sky. "I nearly thought your world doesn't have any."

"Well, Kiritsugu said that it has something to do with the artificial lights polluting the sky or something", Irisviel chuckled. "It seems most unusual that something as useful as light can be considered pollution."

Jaime silently agreed. For some time both of them were just standing there, gazing into the distance. The Kingsguard was never a friend of idle talk, or at least he often found himself at a loss of words when he couldn't deflect it with jokes or mockery. Therefore he said nothing and only joined her.

"You've spoken with Kiritsugu", she inquired after a while.

"He's recovering surprisingly fast", he stated.

"No, he isn't", was Iri's cruel answer. "He never is."

"Then why doing this?", he just had to ask. "Why is he sacrificing everything, even you, when it just breaks him?"

"Exactly because of this", Iri gave a sad smile. "He doesn't just think about what is lost, he thinks about everything that may be lost if he stays idle. He agonizes about it, blaming himself over and over. That's why I cannot side with you in this matter. If we fled from our responsibility, it would break him. Maybe not immediately, but over time. He would be slowly consumed by regret."

JaimJaime grimaced. In her mind, there were obviously only two possible outcomes. Her and her daughter in a cruel world or her husband and her daughter in a perfect one.

 _Just what in the world did he do to her to twist her like this?_

"Only the more reason for him to listen."

"I am pretty sure that right now he's thinking about the same question. And the loss of Maiya... he cannot allow to have her have died in vain."

"I had the same impression. Even though... it seems to me that he tried to look as if he took it easier than I do the return trip with you", he grimaced and shivered to underline his statement.

He could not allow that gloomy atmosphere to go on forever. And Jaime succeeded, the lady's features turned softer when she looked taken aback by that sudden change of topic.

"I am... sorry if you don't like my driving...", she spoke defensively, but her crossing arms showed defiance.

"This is not driving, what you do is murder!", he shot back.

While Kiritsugu tracked down Oberyn's Master and claimed to have finished him upon his return, Irisviel drove the two of them to the castle that was their hideout. She was adept at driving a vehicle, having obviously trained with Kiritsugu, but in her endearing joy of the thrill she disregarded all rules of traffic mankind had ever thought of. Therefore his exasperation was only half a joke, she indeed managed to scare all the seven hells out of him.

"I was just testing the car's limits", Iri protested. "If you don't like driving, you can gladly go afoot."

"Again, this is not about driving. It's about me not being able to stand Robert's bloody grin after he hears that I died in a traffic accident. Especially before I had the chance to carve him a red smile."

He was about to add that even he could drive more sensibly without his Riding skill, but her sudden change of expression startled him enough to stop in his tracks. She turned a whole lot more pale, gasping as if something was pressing the air out of her lungs.

"What is-", the second he spoke up Jaime already knew what was going on, a soft tingle went through his body as well. Somebody was charging head on towards them.

"The boundary field was entered", she broke the news down, having become serious by now.

"He's coming on a straight line from Fuyuki", Jaime noticed.

 _Such boldness. It must be Robert! The exact same foolhardy aggressiveness he proved at Tohsaka's place. So much for that bastard's assumption that Robert made a pact back there._

The two of them returned to the inside, Kiritsugu already awaited them standing in front of his laptop for the ensuing strategy meeting. Jaime wondered what he had come up with.

"It's Robert, right?", Jaime asked upon entering the dining room.

"I don't know", was Kiritsugu's blunt answer. "It is a single Servant without the backup of a Master. He moves fast and in Spirit Form, the cameras were not able to capture him."

Jaime sighed. A shred of doubt crept up the back of his head. The attacker was by all means not sneaky, but he wasn't completely open about his intention either.

 _Robert would want himself to be seen._

"In any case, let me go out there and finish him", Jaime proposed eagerly.

"Fine, I don't want you winding up without enough space to move anyway", he turned towards Iri. "I'm sorry, but I need you to pose as Saber's Master once again."

"No problem", she replied instantly.

"This Master seems more cautious than Kayneth", he continued to the both of them. "I won't be of much help to you, but I will overlook the battle from-"

A shockwave went through walls, floors and ceiling, even sending some dust crumbling down onto their heads. Jaime moved swiftly to the hitman's side as he switched through the pictures of the cameras he had placed throughout the castle. He stopped at one perched atop the battlements, right above the spot Jaime and Iri had been talking with each other at only a moment ago. The entire walkway was now engulfed in flames. Green flames. Spreading like a living serpent following its prey until it even consumed the camera, ending the transmission abruptly.

"Wildfire!", Jaime whispered in shock.

"You know the weapon used?", Kiritsugu had obviously overheard him.

The knight grimaced.

"Sitting it out is no option, this stuff will melt right through the stones."

 _There is no way in seven hells that Robert would use something as backhandedly as this in combat. Someone else has just put us under siege._

"So much for any sniping positions", Kiritsugu cursed, just as a second shiver went through the castle. "We have to change the plan. There is a hidden corridor to the woods behind the castle. Iri and I will take that and try to make an escape while you deal with the attacker."

"Right away", Jaime clenched his fist. "I had no intention to be baked like a fish in here."

Summoning armor, shield and cloak, he dashed off and out of the castle. There were no goodbyes and he felt them quite inappropriate since he would only come back after his victory anyway. Phasing through the heavy front doors, he materialized then and there, walking down the steps of the entrance. On the clearing in front of the castle three huge trebuchets were erected. The weights of two them had dropped down into idle position, marking them as the ones responsible for the green inferno above his head. Only the one to Jaime's left was still in attack position. Behind him the entire top of the castle was aflame, the wildfire had obviously spread down into the courtyard. It was only a matter of time before it would attack the carrying elements of the castle, bringing it down. Cursing, Jaime turned towards the figure clad in golden armor that was standing in front of the three siege engines.

 _Don't tell me..._

They were separated by a good 50 meters and yet he could see that face clearly. A face with a smug grin that seemed not at all surprised to see him, much the opposite to his own reaction. A face that was a spitting image of his younger self. With this armor, it was like he looked through a mirror into his own past. And yet he recognized the differences, he recognized the true colours of the brat behind that face.

"Joff?", was his aghast shout. "What in the gods' name are you doing here?"

The boy raised his chest as he was resting his hand on his sword handle. It was indeed none other than Joffrey Baratheon, the first of his name, King of you-know-what. For a moment, all the build-up tension simply fell off his soldiers.

 _My son._

He told himself that he never actually was, but the thought was still buried somewhere in the back of his head.

"Good evening, uncle!", he called out, obviously in his best mood. "I find your surprise quite unwarranted. Isn't it obvious that I'm besieging your pity excuse of a castle?"

 _Oh, I got that much, I just wondered how a little shit like you qualified as a Heroic Spirit._

The trebuchet might have been able to give him a hint. Jaime remembered that his sweet sister positioned her son at the Mud Gate, commanding trebuchets that were called 'The Three Whores' during the Battle of Blackwater. At least until she panicked about even that and fetched him back to the keep to make him hide under her skirt.

"You seem nearly pleased to see me here", Jaime observed. "I'll give you that, coming here knowing that I will be your opponent is very brave."

He saw himself forced to correct that notion when he watched the boy wavering upon that, taking a step backwards. Joffrey's advantage was the wildfire, so being closer to the trebuchets made him feel more secure, apparently. And Jaime found himself agreeing.

 _One hit from that thing and I'm done._

Jaime's sword arm moved unconsciously to Oathkeeper's hilt. Joffrey tensed.

"You don't dare!", the boy threatened with a shrill voice.

"Oh, there is a lot I do dare", he put on his most mischievous smile.

He didn't draw his sword as of yet. Instead he took a careful step to the right. And then another one. As unthreatening as possible. Jaime saw that there was no way he could manage to get out of its firing range, the readied trebuchet moved on its own as if operated by an army of ghosts to keep its aim on him. But he still hoped that by walking in a circle he could move into a position where the idle siege engines would block its firing arc. Joffrey's twitchy attitude however made him doubt that this would work. He was already prepared for the worst when suddenly the weight of the trebuchet dropped down hard. Jaime jumped to the left, putting all his might into his feet to lift himself from the ground. In the same motion he threw his body to the side, so that he was able to put his shield between himself and the fiery explosion that had just swallowed the ground he stood on a second ago. Countless green tongues lunged after him, he could feel the heat and nearly despaired. For a moment he thought the wrinkled face of the mad king cackled within the inferno, inviting him to join the hell he surely must have ended up in. Jaime buried his face under his shield, withstanding the temptation.

He crashed hard on his back, sliding across the cold, wet mud. For a moment he thought that he failed to escape the flames, with his eyes focusing on the green flames close to him. But he immediately realized that some of the volatile substance must have been flung onto his shield, where the living flames already begun to eat through the steel. He hastily opened the straps on his lower arm and threw it away, watching how the shield vaporized, leaving only the ground for the fire to ineffectively nibble at. Taking a ragged breath, Jaime Lannister jumped to his feet. His force jump had carried him surprisingly far away from the impact zone, nearly back into the woods. The whole entrance area of Einzbern Castle however had turned into a burning crater. Despite the disastrous display, a wave of relieve went through the knight of the Kingsguard. This time, his cocky grin was genuine as he finally drew Oathkeeper.

"So much for your trump card, nephew."

He watched how the colour left the boy's face.

"Wh... what... what do you mean?"

"Well, you should have reloaded the other ones while you still had the chance!", Jaime laughed, driven by the thrill.

"Wait, I have to reload?"

Jaime didn't grace him with an answer. He darted forward, weightless like the ghost he was.

"Wait, wait, wait!", the aghast Joffrey struggled to pull his own sword from his sheath as Jaime already stood right in front of him.

 **Irisviel**

The woods behind the castle were dense and shrouded in utter darkness. The moon and whatever stars were usually visible, were now covered by the thick blanked of intertwined leaves above them. Even the green inferno that used to be Einzbern castle was already swallowed by them. Through this darkness the two of them hurried, onwards towards the car Kiritsugu had placed just outside the forest. With this they could escape into the more lively districts of Fuyuki, where there was no danger of getting attacked in plain view.

 _What is-_

Irisviel's heart cramped together. Gasping for air she leaned against a nearby tree. Kiritsugu, who had been scouting forward despite being slowed down by the heavy bag he was shouldering, turned around with a worried look on his face.

"Another intruder?", he implored.

"A single Master. In the direction we are facing right now", she pointed directly ahead.

"Then we have to circle him", he thought loudly, but Iri just shook her head.

"Impossible. He's too fast."

 _Faster than any human should be._

The thought dreaded her. She sensed nobody else, but he was still charging towards them with insane speed.

"Then I'll go ahead and intercept him", Kiritsugu decided.

Iri let go of the branch.

"I won't let you", she replied sharply.

Kiritsugu seemed taken aback.

"You are sure?"

"This man... I won't let you face him alone", she didn't allow herself to break eye contact, she needed to answer his confused stare with a decisive one.

"I see. It is Kirei Kotomine", he grimaced slightly. "Very well. Then let us await him together."

And so they did. They found a steep ridge that made for good cover while Iri prepared her battle familiar. Einzbern alchemy wasn't necessarily made for combat, but their focus on creating living familiars without the need of biologic material proved to be applicable to many needs and one of those was the need to defend oneself. The only downside was the horrendous prana consumption, something a living magic circuit like herself at least never needed to bother herself with. Meanwhile Kiritsugu used a bunch of three small trees which had grown intertwined with each other as cover.

"Möge das Licht dich in die Irre führen", she whispered her first spell.

Kiritsugu turned towards her and she nodded. They somehow had to bring the odds in their favour and a couple of illusionary allies could prove useful to make Kirei turn his back. Right as she finished the preparations, the enemy himself showed his face. The fake priest stepped into the clearing in front of them, the silver cross on his chest gleaming on what little moonlight found its way through the leaves being the source of light on him. He may have seemed unarmed, but the tension of his body was visible.

"Greift an!", Iri whispered.

Two imaginary volleys targeted Kirei in short succession. The first struck a nearby tree branch, seemingly ripping it apart. The second one hit Kirei directly. And right through him, which was obviously not the plan. He should evade and turn around to his unseen attackers, but instead he didn't even flinch. He just stared down at the ridge Iri was hiding in. He summoned six thin blades from between his knuckles, three for each of his hands. And he darted forward.

 _He saw right through it..._

Before Kirei was able to reach her, Kiritsugu broke out of his cover and let his machine-gun howl up through the night air. A barrage of bullets should have riddled the priest thrice over, but they were instead plucked out of the air right beside him. With the air wavering and twisting, the shape of a scrawny young girl formed at his side, obviously shielding him. Something Iri had already expected...

"Mögest du gebunden sein!"

Countless glowing silver strings struck up from the ground, entangling Kirei's legs and turned his speed against him. He tumbled to the ground, grunting softly as he cushioned his fall with his arms. And the living strings continued their onslaught, winding themselves around his arms and torso, tightening hard and completely immobilizing his whole body. But the girl was still charging towards her. Up until now she had likened her speed to the priest's in order to shield him, but with her Master fallen, she abridged the distance with one single leap. A small, slender blade danced through the night. A blade that would have easily sliced her to bits, if not for another gunshot to interrupt her charge. This time it came alone, it was not from Kiritsugu's automatic gun. And the bullet contained a magic powerful enough to even harm a spirit.

"Ugh...", she gasped, as she was struck.

The girl stopped in her tracks, turning towards the source of that attack. Taking a glimpse at her face beneath the messy mop of dark hair, Iri couldn't help but dread about how young she was. But it was a face of full hatred, and with that hatred she glared at Kiritsugu. The whole moment couldn't have lasted more than a second, but the girl looked back to Iri and saw that she was completely occupied controlling the strings that incapacitated Kirei. Equipped with that knowledge, she darted away. With her sword glistening through the moonlight she charged at Iri's husband. A charge that he had no way to defend himself against.

"Kiritsugu!", Iri called out in panic.

 **Jaime**

The knight went easy on him, striking an arching backhand blow that could have cut him in half, but low enough so that he was able to bring his own sword between them in the last second. The sound of metal hitting metal echoed through the woods. The power of the strike overwhelmed Joffrey, he lost his footing and fell on his royal ass, so Jaime had him at sword point.

 _Come on, this was a beginner's mistake! I thought you were trained better!_

He had him at his mercy and could have ended it then and there. But for some reason, his hand didn't move. He told himself it wasn't out of fear for kinslaying, considering that this wouldn't be a first, he was cursed anyway. But something bothered him about the whole situation. It simply didn't feel right. And he saw himself confirmed with that when he looked just what had made Oathkeeper ring like this. The black sword in Joffrey's hands rippled with pulsating red veins.

 _Don't tell me... the sword he dubbed Widow's Wail?_

Jaime stepped back, a serious expression on his face. This was Ned Stark's steel. Just like the one he held in his own hands. Both magnificent blades of the kind which were meant for heroes. But instead it was held by a child full of fear. A child that he was about to murder for a pointless ritual.

 _I can't just cut him down like this... those swords deserve better. They deserve a true duel._

"Get up!", he ordered bluntly. "And mind your feet!"

Joffrey just stared back at him with wide eyes.

"Can't you hear me?", Jaime hissed angrily.

The boy scrambled to his feet, finally unsheathing the blade completely and clutching it desperately.

"Now let's let you honour this sword of yours", the Kingsguard promised. "You still have the chance to give me a duel to justify you being here!"

Joffrey gulped, tightening his grip even more, as if that was even possible. Jaime proceeded with his advance, slowly, with a series of high angle cuts. Joffrey used all his concentration to block them desperately. While steel and steel bit into each other, Jaime's foot leapt upwards and kicked the boy into the chest, who went down like a sack of turnips.

"You kicked me!", he protested between his coughs. "You kicked the king!"

"I usually kill kings, you might have heard of that", Jaime declared, rolling his eyes. "Be glad that I did just that! Your openings are as glaring as the gates of King's Landing during a tourney day. Get up!"

At least now he followed his instruction swiftly.

 _I don't get it. He's tall and well built, a lot like young me, actually. He should have all the makings to be at least a decent knight. Cersei, what did you do to him while I wasn't around?_

"You... you can't harm me, you swore an oath."

"As far as I can see, that one ended with my life. Or yours, respectively", Jaime shrugged.

"I am still king. And you are my Kingsguard!", Joffrey declared angrily. "I order you to stand down!"

"What are you about to do? Order me to die?", Jaime found his attempts at negotiation weirdly amusing. "Let me teach you that, while we're at it: You can't order people to die! Given your rank, you can order them to fight and risk their lives, but you can't expect them to give it up for nothing in return. That's simply not the way it works."

The boy hissed angrily and charged forward.

 _Now there we go!_

Jaime deflected the swings, allowing Oathkeeper to sing in the air. The ferocity of his strikes reminded him faintly of the way the Hound tended to jump into a melee, making it quite clear whom he tried to copy, but sadly he had not the brute strength to deliver them as effectively. In the end Joffrey overreached himself and Jaime managed to move easily behind Widow's Wail, sending the Valyrian Steel sword flying. The disarmed boy king then got the knight's elbow to his face, making him stumble down into the dirt once again.

"You struck me!", he complained.

"You don't say", Jaime sneered.

He looked at Widow's Wail lying in the dirt. It somehow reminded him of a broken sword he saw flying like this when he was a youth. Each time a sword broke, the shining knight with the glowing magic sword allowed his opponent to fetch a new one. If he allowed Joffrey to pick it up once again, he would finally find himself in the same shoes.

 _Was that what I expected to happen here? No... the picture is wrong. Back then it were the swords that were unable to keep up with the prowess of those knights. Right here, it is only the boy who can't keep up with his sword._

He realized that no matter how many chances he gave the boy the result would always be the same. He sighed.

"I wanted you to die with a sword in hand, but from this point on any more toying would be just cruel", he pointed towards Widow's Wail. "One last bout. Pick it up!"

Instead Joffrey crawled backwards like a golden bug that was put on his back.

"You can't do that, uncle Jaime!"

"So now I'm your uncle again, am I?"

He readied Oathkeeper, but it still felt wrong. Joffrey looked like the terrified boy he was, barely a man grown. He may have never cared about Joffrey, but he was still of his own blood. Even more than the boy knew.

 _Damn, why am I hesitating so much? He attacked us! Just because he went down as if he wasn't even trying?_

"Bloody Grail War", he cursed, grabbing the whimpering boy at his neck and preparing himself to slit his throat as swift as possible. With Valyrian Steel being as sharp as it is, it should be possible to make it comparably painless.

"A Grail War you already lost, fool", Joffrey then hissed, apparently still having a little impertinence left.

It was enough to stop Jaime for a second.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, by now your stupid Master is surely already dead!"

Jaime gave a dark chuckle.

"If your Master thinks he can mess with mine, he will find a dark surprise.

Joffrey stared back defiantly.

"I'm not talking about useless Tohsaka. I'm talking about the wolf girl!"

"Wolf girl?", for a moment he thought Joffrey was lying through his teeth to save his skin. But that would have been not a very good lie. It only slowly dawned upon him who exactly he meant by that. "You can't mean..."

His answer was a cocksure grin. Frustrated, Jaime hammered his face in with the pommel of sword and left him there. There was no time for him left to finish him off. He had to run at full speed if he hoped to rescue Iri and Kiritsugu. Because they were already under attack by a Servant...

 **Irisviel**

Iri's heart had stopped the moment she realized that the Servant was going for Kiritsugu first. This was Assassin, the weakest of the seven. It was the only one who could slip through her Boundary Field completely unnoticed. A skilled enough mage could have managed to harm her, her bird familiars might even be enough and surely Kiritsugu's precious bullets made of his own pulverized bones were able to cause some damage. But apparently even Assassin was too powerful to be defeated by anyone not being another Heroic Spirit. So when Assassin decided to charge for her husband, she already imagined the worst. Kiritsugu, the Master of the Einzberns and Ilya's sole hope to not share her mother's fate, would now be cut down by a Servant.

The scraping sound of metal echoed through the woods. It was enough to send a shiver through Iri's spine. She barely managed to watch what happened, but still forced herself to look.

"What? How?", she gasped, now a wave of relieve went through her body as well, throwing her into utter confusion.

A silver knight with a billowing white cape had appeared between Assassin and her prey in the last moment, barely able to deflect the attack.

 _Ser Jaime!_

Assassin backed away a little, keeping some distance between herself and the dark sword of her opponent. The girl who seemed unstoppable only a second ago now looked frail and hopelessly outmatched against the heavily armored knight. And yet Jaime didn't use the opportunity to strike through her meagre defence and end it immediately. He just stood there, breathing heavily, and yet it wasn't just his flight to Kiritsugu's rescue that had left him speechless. It was the girl itself as he looked at her with both astonishment and horror.

"You are Arya Stark", he just whispered, completely frozen by the realization.

The girl's eyes narrowed, but her attention was still drawn more to the unsheathed sword than to his words. After a quick assessment of her situation, she retreated back towards her Master.

"No, wait!", Jaime called out without success, making a feeble attempt at blocking her way.

The girl turned around and became a barely visible whirl, rushing over her Master and cutting Iri's strings in one single motion. She didn't stop there. Without waiting for Kirei to recover, she sprinted onwards, directly towards Iri herself, following the trail of strings that lead towards her hands. The intent to kill was clearly glowing within her dark grey eyes. Facing such danger, Iri instinctively pulled on her remaining strings, forming a new construct to defend herself.

"Form ist Le-", long before she could finish the spell, the girl crashed into her with the impact of a speeding car.

"Iri!", Kiritsugu's agonizing scream brushed past her ear as she went down.

A sharp pain went through her belly, one that increased in intensity as the girl stepped back and rushed away, out of her view. She didn't remember hitting the ground, but she did remember the odd feeling of both coldness and heat intermingling in her chest, making it a very confusing experience. She tried to reach for its source with her right hand, but nearly fainted from the agony it caused. Her hand felt warm and wet. Iri watched the red fluid that got on it with horror. It was too much blood, far too much.

 _Not yet_ , she thought with horror. _I can't die right now. I still have to..._

She tried to fight it off, she tried to remember some self-healing spells, but even thinking became a bother. She felt tired, her strength was fading.

 _Kiritsugu..._

 _without..._

 _he can't..._

 _Ilya..._


	7. Chapter 7 - Detective Rin

It's been a long, long time since the last update, huh? But oh well, since I am also in the last steps of my Master thesis, I have allowed myself a comfortable workload in which I actually manage to make lots of progress with both my study-related writing and my hobby of torturing fictional characters.

This is chapter is going to be an odd one. A breather if you so want, but only because I have cut off the battle scenes with which it was supposed to culminate after I noticed that I reached 17.000 words and the end was still not in sight. Therefore I am in the comfortable position to both present you with a chapter and announce that the delay to the next one is not going to be that long, given that most of it is already written anyway.

Have fun!

* * *

Chapter 7 - Detective Rin

 **Jaime**

Jaime stood in the centre of the clearing, Oathkeeper still drawn, his mouth wide open. It had all happened in an instant and he was still trying to get a grasp on what exactly had happened. The girl they were facing, the one summoned as Assassin, was the girl he had assumed dead since long ago. The girl he had vowed to protect and to get to safety.

 _Defend Ned Stark's girl with Ned Stark's steel._

Oathkeeper felt unusually heavy in his hands. How could he protect her when she didn't even hesitated to cut down...

 _Iri!_

He attempted a step forward, but was too frozen to the ground to move. Even from afar, her wound looked terrible. Not immediately fatal, but a belly sliced open like this made a long and painful death certainty. Arya however was nowhere to be seen anymore and neither was her Summoner. She had picked him up and rushed back into the woods after she must have realized that this was as much damage as she could do without risking Jaime snapping out of his confusion.

Instead of charging towards his doomed wife, Kiritsugu scrambled to a nearby tree and fetched a large bag. Jaime attempted to express his confusion, but even if he had been able to speak through his tightened throat, Kiritsugu looked like he would have ignored him anyway. Out of the bag a long shape of blue and silver surfaced and only after his Master placed it on the ground next to him he recognized it as the empty sheath of a large bastard sword.

"What is this?", Jaime croaked, still rooted to the ground.

Kiritsugu ignored him, just as expected. He instead placed both hands on the sheath, speaking rough words in a foreign tongue. Seconds later, a faint glow radiated from it, slowly fighting back the darkness. Even Jaime in his ignorance of everything supernatural recognized that this was no simple trick, he was pouring life itself into it. His own life. Kiritsugu was shivering, wavering. Jaime thought to see tears glistening on his face, but his features showed utter, desperate determination. Realizing that his Master was on the verge of collapsing, Jaime finally snapped out of his daze. He slowly took a step towards him, but once again he froze in the middle of his motion. He watched Kiritsugu's hands shaking as all strength was sucked out of him. Jaime knew that there was nothing he could do anymore. Letting go of Oathkeeper, he finally rushed to Iri's side, kneeling down besides her. Her eyes were closed, but her whole body was shivering.

 _She must have fainted from the pain._

The wound looked grisly to him. her jacket was completely drenched in blood and more came pouring out by the minute. Under the light of the moon her features looked even more pale as usual, especially in contrast to the bubbles of blood coming out of her mouth. Biting his lip, Jaime carefully rolled her to the side to decrease the risk of her drowning on it. That was the only thing he could do. Jaime saw many a man die on the battlefield and he knew some of the simpler tricks you could do to buy time for the Maester's to arrive. He could have applied pressure on a smaller wound to decrease the bleeding or could have tried to remove the clothing the sword stabbed through, woman or not, in order to prevent a festering. But with her belly being sliced through like this, he was overcome by utter helplessness. If this had been a battlefield in Westeros, the only thing he could reasonably do was helping her getting to the other side faster and with little more pain. Something he didn't dare with Kiritsugu still working on... something. He gritted his teeth and punched the soft ground with his gauntlets.

"I'm sorry", Jaime whispered. "I'm sorry, I should have..."

Kiritsugu must have heard him, there was no other reason Jaime could think of for that he suddenly found himself looking into the face of his Master, who stared back full of anger and damning judgement. He was crouching down on the opposite side of the fallen woman.

"I-", Jaime choked on his words even before the interruption came.

"Not now", Kiritsugu growled, breathing heavily.

In his hands was the sheath, still glowing softly. He placed its tip sideways upon Iri's chest and closed his eyes. With his still shaking hands, he drove the sheath onwards, into her heart. Jaime was aghast for a second, until he realized that this was not quite what happened. It was more like the object slid through her, only to never come out on the other side. After a few seconds, the entire sheath had disappeared, nothing of it remaining. The first seconds passed in silence, then entire minutes. They were still kneeling in the darkness, watching the unchanging woman twitching in pain in front of them. Nothing happened.

"Please", it was only a faint whisper, but it repeated over and over again. "Please, please, please."

It was Kiritsugu begging to whichever gods he prayed to. Tears were streaming down his face as he collapsed in front of Iri.

"Please, please."

Jaime felt like suffocating. This was his fault. He was the one who failed to protect her.

 _Again... I stood by and did nothing._

Kiritsugu was sobbing in front of her, his face planted on the ground. He let go of his emotions, letting them all pour out alongside his tears. And yet a hand appeared, softly stroking his hair. Iri's hand. Kiritsugu looked up and so did Jaime. Her eyes had opened again as she looked at him with pitying eyes. She had no words for him, the only thing escaping her mouth were soft, barely audible coughs and a forced smile.

"Irisviel!", Jaime called out. "Irisviel!"

And yet her reached out hand weakened and it slumped down as she closed her eyes again, slowly drifting off again.

"Stay with us, Irisviel!", Jaime panicked.

Only then he realized that Kiritsugu was already straightening his position and wiping his face. Jaime stared at his relieved face with utter confusion, at least until he pointed wordlessly towards her wound. Or what was left of it, for that matter.

 _In the name of the..._

There was white skin beneath the torn jacket. If not for the dark red stains on her clothes, she would have looked as if she only got a bad scratching by thorny bushes. The wound itself was utterly closed.

 _How is that..._

Jaime looked at his Master searching for answers, but he was already pushing himself up, trying his best to stand up despite his shaky footing. Jaime tried to offer his help, but only received another hateful stare before Kiritsugu turned away and walked a few wobbly steps away from Jaime and Iri. He pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, stared at it for a few seconds and then put it away with a weary sigh. Taking another few steps he reached the edge of the clearing again where he took the closest tree as support to keep himself upon his legs. After throwing up in the bushes, Kiritsugu slowly returned to the clearance and sat down in the middle of it, looking just as miserable as he must have felt.

"The sheath of King Arthur", he finally said, his voice quivering.

The knight of the Kingsguard listened carefully, remembering that he heard the name uttered a few times before.

"Without Arthur it is stripped of its true power, but that doesn't mean the item has forgotten its intended use. The effect won't last for long though..."

"I..."

"Save yourself the trouble of explaining...", Kiritsugu seethed with anger. "I don't know what you were thinking. I don't know what this girl meant to you. But I sincerely hope that you now see that we cannot afford another such moment of hesitation! I will not allow it."

"She...", Jaime began, once again choking on his own conflicting feelings.

"... will return! And then you will do your duty. To me. To Iri. And to our world", he pushed himself up again, he couldn't have been able to recover much of his energy and yet he stared into the distance with hard eyes. "We have to move. Others might take advantage of our situation."

Jaime scrambled to his feet, unsure what to do. A glow of green and red was illuminating the sky above the forest behind them. This was no sunrise by all means. It meant that returning to the castle was no option anymore. The only direction they could go was... onwards. Both men looked towards Iri, who had fallen into an unruly slumber.

"I'd prefer to carry her myself, but", Kiritsugu began with barely hidden contempt, but his voice trailed off as he stared at his still shaking hands.

"No problem", Jaime carefully picked Iri up, concerned about the fact that she was light as a feather.

Thus, they slid back into the forest. For now Jaime was glad about having a direction, about having a clear objective. It kept his mind from trailing off to dangerous thoughts. About how things had turned this way. And whether he could bring himself to act like Kiritsugu wanted him to.

 **Waver**

For some reason Waver Velvet didn't feel like waking up this morning. He surely must have spent an hour staring at the ceiling of this unfamiliar attic room that he had managed to turn into his own kingdom in this strange, foreign country. It was his safe zone, so to speak. Far away from the locals who couldn't understand a word he said and from his Servant who didn't want to. Robert Baratheon himself had left a little earlier after spending the night snoring so loud Waver dreaded the drunken oaf was about to suffocate. Now that he came to think of it, his severe lack of sleep may have contributed to his current state of grumbling dismay at the rising of the sun.

 _Wait... Where did he go?_

With one leap he darted out of his bed. The moment the realization dawned upon him, his initial grogginess was like washed away. Scanning his surroundings, he felt drops of sweat dripping down on his face.

"No, no, no! Not again!"

Waver walked up the window and stared outside. With the exception of a few students walking down the sloped road towards the school, there was nobody exceptional to be seen. After all, even after ditching the armor, this bearded He-Man stuck out in modern Japan like a sore thumb.

"Rideeeeaaaaar", he wanted to shout it, but it came out as a measly whining instead as he slumped down on the ground. "I can't believe it... I lost him... again..."

He mentally prepared himself for another desperate hunt for that moron as he changed into his street clothes.

 _Maybe I should just give up and go home. He said he doesn't want the Grail anymore, so why push the issue. Damn it... two times already, I can hardly believe it..._

He descended the stairs down to the living room, hanging his head in frustration and grumbling to himself in a low voice.

"Given his track report he's likely already lying in some back alley like the worthless drunkard he is-"

"Good morning, Waver-kun!", a booming voice roared up.

"... right here?", Waver nearly fell the last few steps as he stumbled upon his own feet.

The breakfast table was already set, the MacKenzies were sitting at it like any other morning, though maybe unusually cheerfully, and amidst all this sat Robert Baratheon, shovelling yellow rice into his mouth. Waver stared at him as if in a daze.

"Why haven't you told us that you've invited one of your college friends from England to stay over?", Glen asked, sounding mildly hurt about it.

"College friend?", he repeated awestruck.

"And Robert is such a good-natured young man...", Martha added with a smirk.

"Robert?"

The man in question grinned broadly.

"What are you doing down here?", Waver asked mindlessly, driven by autopilot.

"I wanted to wait for you to wake up, but you stubbornly refused to do so... so with nothing better to do, I introduced myself to our hosts."

 _Of course he did..._

"My, my, there is no reason for you to be embarrassed by such a polite and curious friend", Martha chided him softly. "You didn't need to hide him."

"I just... I..."

 _... need to make another oblivion potion..._

"Come, come, why are you just standing there like you are about to take roots?", Robert urged. "Do you know that the locals like to put raw eggs into this white cereal? Crazy, isn't it? Your grandparents were so nice to introduce me to the peculiarities of this country."

"Oh, were they?"

Now that it was pointed out to him, he realized that they had set the table with Japanese food, which was quite unusual, partly because he expressed early on that he can't stand it. But even then, now that he finally arrived down here, he found his belly grumbling. It kept reminding him that he spent the entire day before dragged through the city by Rider, never having eaten anything else after breakfast. Mentally waving a white flag, he shuffled towards his seat next to Rider.

"Robert told us what you were doing yesterday", Glen continued on, oblivious to the fact that Waver fumbled reaching for the rice bowl the moment he realized the implications of that.

"He did?", he croaked.

"Yes. That you picked him up at the airport and showed him around in Fuyuki."

"Did I?", a massive hand slammed into his back, failing to look like a friendly pat. "Oh yeah, I did..."

"You had us worried yesterday", Martha chided him once again as she offered him the soup.

"Sorry... I didn't intend to make it that late, but I kinda got... carried away."

Waver felt really conflicted about this. Deceiving them to make them think he was their grandson was bad enough, but then causing them even more trouble through his actions sickened him. He knew he had to, he was that desperate, but he was also constantly thinking that he should be above such shady actions. One point at last in which he agreed with his Servant.

"We already feared the worst, you know that Fuyuki is not as safe as it used to be. Especially with this dreadful terrorist attack...", Glen grimaced darkly.

Glen and Martha were right in their worries, albeit for reasons unknown to them. Fuyuki had turned into a battlefield. And many of these recent happenings must have been fallout from battles. Though Waver was not quite sure why the combatants showed such blatant disregard for the safety of innocents.

 _Magi..._

Flashbacks of their twisted society in London darkened his mood. To get some different thoughts he shifted his attention to the TV that had been nothing more than background noise during the entire conversation. It was a news channel and they were interviewing people in a busy crowd. Of course Waver was neither able to understand any word they said, nor was he able to read the text floating into the view. He now looked towards Robert, who watched it attentively.

"What's happening today?"

"Oh you won't like it", Robert grimaced. "Or you will. I don't know whether you have buried your foolish crusade yet or not."

Waver gulped. More fallout.

"They show Fuyuki again?"

"Can't you remember it? This is the old temple at the edge of Miyama. We have been there before, but maybe you were too little", Glen pointed out.

"Possibly", Waver replied awkwardly. "But anyway, what's happening?"

"It seems you are about to hear for yourself", Robert reached for the remote and turned up the volume.

Waver realized just then that the woman who was being interviewed had just started to talk in English.

"... a message for your viewers world-wide: The darkness is upon you! But don't despair, because the Lord of Light will not abandon his children, no matter where they are. With his will, and humanity's strength, we will surely prevail against the old enemy. And build ourselves a bright future, bathing in the Lord's glory."

The woman in the red robe and with her striking features was obviously a foreigner. Waver was puzzled about the implications of this.

"You know her?", he asked Robert, who shook his head with a sly smile.

"I wish I did, if you know what I mean. Crazy religion aside, I'd remember that comely a wench", he snickered. "But this is not the first I have heard of the Lord of Light. An old drinking buddy of mine was an anointed priest of their little cult. You would have liked him, jovial guy, loved setting things on fire. But he was one of the good guys at court."

Glen and Martha frowned at his wording, but otherwise nodded in understanding.

"But what is she doing in Japan? Well, I know what she's doing here, but why is she making public appearances in the news? That's just crazy!", Waver interjected.

"Well, with all the trouble the city has found itself confronted with, people want to get together in prayer", Martha explained. "And she just wants to make the people feel at ease."

"Why do you know that?", Waver asked.

"The Tonoaka's from next door were curious and went to one of the nightly gatherings. They say it's relatively harmless. They make a bonfire in the yard of the temple, play music and sing songs. Since the Ryuudous, the owners of the temple, gave permission to use their grounds, people have faith that she's a good person."

"I see."

Waver suppressed his urge to deny her, but he couldn't deny his own thoughts. That there must be some sinister purpose behind that Lady's public appearance.

"What's the name they are giving her?", Waver asked and Robert squinted at the screen.

"It's in Katakana, so it may be a little off. There stands... Lady Me-ri-sa-n-do-ru. Huh. Can't say I've heard that one before", he grimaced before turning back to Waver. "I don't know what you're thinking, but I don't care what she's doing. For that matter, Raiga-dono promised to show us around once again. And I'm looking forward to take him up on the offer... for your sake as well."

Waver looked at him dubiously.

"What do you mean with that?"

"Nothing sinister, be assured", he sported a toothy grin. "I just want you to have some fun for a change!"

 **Rin**

The smell of incense hung heavy in the air, adding a lot to the already suffocating atmosphere. The only one not bothered by the teary-eyed faces seemed to be the boy on the photo, smiling confidently towards the viewer and making a peace sign with his right hand. Of course, he was just a picture frozen of time. Rin thought that it was surreal in itself. A boy this age should not be portrayed in a black-striped frame. Or in a coffin, for that matter. Not that he actually was, according to the murmurs of the black-dressed crowd around Tohsaka.

 _The world has turned mad._

With the Grail War having started, Rin and her mother found themselves fleeing from Fuyuki, being refugees at her grandparent's place. She even forbade her to attend the funeral of her classmate, something Rin felt obligated to defy. This was her duty. As a classmate, as a class representative and most of all as a Tohsaka. Just like her father had a duty to protect the city itself, Rin took it upon herself to look after her classmates. Even though she had barely interacted with this boy, in fact she faintly remembered having gotten at odds with him and one of his friends in some childish argument some time before he disappeared, but she still felt his loss as some kind of personal defeat. Something she couldn't forgive herself. That's why she took the train back to Fuyuki, to attend here, to tell him just that.

 _I'm sorry._

Meanwhile the murmurs around her never stopped. Next to the boy's family, quite a lot of other parents had come to the funeral, accompanying their kids to say their goodbyes. And many of them were still scared.

"The whole family killed in their very own home, what kind of sick monster does that?"

"They say the killer is still on the loose."

"But haven't the crimes stopped?"

"Yes, the craven bastard must be hiding somewhere with his tail between his legs."

"I hope that means the police are closing in. Hell would be too good for this one."

Once again Rin clenched her fists. This was not over yet. There was a good chance that the killer would return, claim even more victims and cause more grief to those left behind. Rin could not allow that. Once again, it was her duty to do something. The wake was about to end, so Rin saw an opportunity to sneak away without it being seen as rude. She had planned on returning home, apologizing to her mother for worrying her and then return to their stupid refugee-life. But now she had the urge to do _something_ , even though she still wasn't quite sure what this was. She only knew that she could never forgive her if she just left like this.

 _But where to start?_

In that moment an unfamiliar woman approached her. She had been shooting her dubious looks several times already, so Rin had somewhat expected her to speak up what was bothering her.

"Are you all alone, my dear?", she asked, obviously worried about the implication.

"No... I mean, at the moment, yes...", she gritted her teeth, dumbfounded about her own failure to come up with a proper excuse.

"I don't know what your parents are thinking, letting you go to a funeral all alone. Shouldn't we call them to take you home."

"I don't have it far...", she said evasively.

A familiar voice chimed in at that.

"Don't pressure her, mom. Rin can take care of herself more than anyone else", the girl stepped to her side.

It was one of her classmates, Kotone. Rin remembered that she was the one who got the least along with the classmate they were paying their respects to. She came all the same, somehow that filled Rin with a little pride. Maybe, if things hadn't turned out like this, their class might have become a more tightly knit group, putting aside all their childish differences.

"Thanks, Kotone-chan", Rin made a small bow before turning back towards her mother. "And I appreciate the worries. But my point stands... I'm not afraid."

"She's the girl I've told you about recently", Kotone pointed out.

"Ah, Tohsaka-chan! Well, I can now certainly see why my daughter looks up to you so much. Still... a girl your age should still be careful out there. Fuyuki is not what it used to be anymore. First a serial killer, now a mad bomber on the run..."

She went off, muttering with a distraught face, leaving Rin and Kotone alone for the moment. Rin was just about to say her farewells as an idea popped up in her head. She pointed towards the altar with the pictures of the deceased.

"Say, Kotone-chan, you don't happen to know where Kensuke and his family used to live, do you?"

 **Waver**

He drifted into the hot water fast and yet soundlessly, unable to suppress the sigh that escaped his lips.

 _Maybe Rider's idea wasn't quite so crazy this time._

He had his doubts when Fujimura's shady goons dropped them off in the middle of a just as shady district somewhere in Shinto. But their destination proved to be a surprisingly simple public bathhouse. After getting forced to take a shower they were brought to this large wooden room that basically only consisted of a giant bathtub inserted into the floor. At this point, Waver had just resigned to his fate and went along with everything, but the foggy warm air seemed to have cleansed him of most of the complaints on his mind. Instead of expressing them, he now just dipped his head underwater and allowed the heat to drift his thoughts away.

 _This could actually be considered heaven... if I didn't have to share the tub with a freaking bear..._

He shot Robert on the other end of the bath a dark look. The knight was leaning against the edge, with both his arms widely extended in a way that he was flashing both his massive biceps and his bushy chest hair.

 _Yeah, a bear alright. And I'm sitting naked in a bathtub with one..._

Waver closed his eyes again, savouring the moment without getting intimidated by that pile of muscles. He would only get complexes by comparing his feeble self to him.

 _At least I have a head on my shoulders... and can follow up my priorities... or can I? Oh, I don't know anymore..._

His mind was successfully turned into pudding as he only savoured the relaxing effect of this treatment.

"This is actually pretty nice for a change...", he allowed himself to say.

"You have seen nothing yet...", Robert replied casually.

For some reason, Waver thought that remark to sound quite ominous. Just as this thought went through his head, the sound of a patter of feet appeared behind him.

 _More guests?_

Grimacing, he turned around. It irritated him that much because Rider had made it sound like this was a private hot springs that was only rented for them. Getting rid of his clothes in front of that lumbering madman was one thing, at least it was _his_ lumbering madman, technically. But now sharing his bath with random strangers was too much for his British sense of privacy. And indeed, there were two bare-chested, slender figures closing in, armed with sponges, lotion, bottles of alcohol and wearing irritatingly fake smiles. Women. Young ones at that, the right one looked barely older than Waver himself was.

"What does this...", Waver stuttered, unsure whether he should better make a dash for his towel still lying next to the tub or fleeing to the opposite end.

"Har! Just the special service of this facility. Relax, boy, and let the ladies do their job. The cuter one is all yours!", Robert roared laughingly.

"You can't be serious!"

The time his focus had shifted to Robert was indeed exploited by the younger woman. The moment Waver turned back around she was already sliding into the water, effectively cutting himself off his towel and moving dangerously close. Panicking, Waver went splashing into the opposite direction, leaving her confused, frowning and a bit offended. Hercules was meanwhile roaring something in Japanese, having obviously the time of his life watching this nonsensical display, and the older woman giggled to something he told her.

 _This is how a teapot boiling over must feel._

He took a deep breath after having brought some distance between himself and the naked woman. She was asking questions and even though the words themselves eluded him, Waver understood very well that she must have been confused about his display of shame and intimidation.

"Har! Running away from a pair of tits! Come on boy, show some guts for a change!", Robert laughed merrily before turning to the other woman and grabbing her by her waist. He effortlessly lifted her up and carried her into the water, boasting shamelessly with his own  
'manliness'.

 _At least someone who has fun..._

Waver himself found it very uncomfortable in the water that seemed to become colder by the minute. Or maybe that was because all the heat was being pumped up into his face as he found himself getting stared at by the woman who mumbled some faint apologies. Of course Waver didn't understand what she thought she had made wrong, but during his pursuit of Rider through this city sincere apologies were pretty much the only thing he got back from the people he had questioned about him, so he already had a grasp on most of the variations in their language.

"Ah, sorry, sorry", he himself tried to talk his way out of this. "This is a misunderstanding, I'm just here to relax, not to... uh..."

He averted his eyes after realizing that he must have stared at her, his head was still steaming from embarrassment. When he looked back again, she had made another step forward, innocently pointing at the lotion she held in hand. Waver gritted his teeth. There was no other way out. He didn't care anymore about how silly he must have looked like, he just had to escape with all means. With one leap he slid out of the tub. Or rather, jumped out it with a messy splashing sound, attempting to use the distraction to make a dart for the dressing room, but instead slipped on the floor and came crashing to the ground. Ignoring his pain, Waver immediately jumped back on his feet and retreated groaning and inwardly fuming, away from the roaring voice of Robert Baratheon:

"As you wish, boy. All the more pretties for me!"

After sitting out his near heart-attack by the shower cubicles, Waver started to ponder that he couldn't just leave and go home. He would have lost Rider again for sure. So he went to the dressing room, took back his street clothes and waited for him to emerge from the hot springs, desperately trying not to think about what he was doing to those poor women. A little more than half an hour later the hairy ursid showed up with a toothy grin, fittingly singing something about a bear and a maid, though it was so off-key that Waver had trouble understanding the words. Waver greeted him with his arms crossed, staring daggers as he was fetching his clothes.

"You know, I actually arranged this for you, to get you to ease up a little", Robert explained, his smile wavering a little as he remembered their initial purpose. "I just hadn't expected you to guard your maidenhead like... well, the Maiden herself."

Waver sighed. This was really not why he was in Fuyuki.

"I can't say I know where you come from, but your idea of 'easing up a little' doesn't give off a flattering picture", Waver complained miserably. "Seriously, what gives you the idea that dragging me to a... to such a place, is remotely what I wished for."

"Huh?", Robert stopped midway through his fight with his shirt, looking back at Waver with a confused expression. "Well, maybe going for a surprise attack with a comely wench wasn't my best idea of the day, though if it gives you any consolation, you didn't need to fuck her. They are just here for service, if you know what I mean. According to Raiga-dono they have outlawed actual brothels for some weird reason. Can you believe that? I mean, who in his right mind does that? Do they have fucking Stannis for their king?"

"I was under the impression they have an emperor...", Waver rebutted weakly, slightly wondering how they got to this tangent now.

"Even worse!", Robert concluded his rant, right on time as Raiga himself showed up.

The old man was wrapped in a towel, obviously returning from the baths himself. Waver was relieved that he hadn't joined them as well, though.

"Ah, I see you have enjoyed this onsen's services already. I hope you feel properly refreshed and have made good use of their unique offers."

"I surely did", Robert replied grinning. "Though the boy was too busy pissing himself."

Fujimura raised his eyebrows as he looked to the still pretty shaken Waver, but was polite enough to not pry into the matter any further, deciding to resume his conversation with the foreign giant.

"I am afraid I will not be able to spend as much time with you as I had initially planned", he announced.

 _Thank God..._

"Anything happened that has soured your mood?", a stunned Robert asked.

"You ask me if something happened?", the old man replied chuckling. "Don't you watch any news?"

"You speak of the bombing incident?", Waver realized.

Raiga nodded, giving a weary sigh.

"It should not concern you and it certainly should not cast a shadow on your stay here, but this whole affair is giving me a headache. My... enterprises profit a lot from the Shinto expansion projects. And if people start to think that there are some conservative terrorists lurking around who blow up prestige projects like the Hyatt, investors get scared off and my enterprises suffer."

"You don't believe it were terrorists?", Waver asked carefully, getting tense now that a subject related to the Grail War had been raised.

"I believe that someone bombed this place, what I don't believe is that the protest group framed with it actually did it. I had already put some pressure onto these guys in the past and they proved docile enough. Nobody would go this far, and certainly nobody has the know-how to tear this place down as professionally as this bomber did", his face twisted in anger. "I am about to meet with several of my contacts this evening, to discuss the proper media coverage and to make a few inquiries into the police work myself. Whoever is trying to mess with my city is going to pay for it."

Waver observed Rider's reaction. Surely enough, if there was anyone capable to put a stop to this madness, it was this muscled giant. He was just too busy moping and getting himself distracted to actually intervene. Not that his mobster friend could know that. At least Robert had the decency to listen with a serious expression.

"To see you this concerned about it, your subjects must be happy to have you as a Lord, huh?"

The old man gave a sly chuckle.

"You always get me with your unique way of thinking. Well then, I'm going to get my clothes and then I go. At least there is one other pleasant task before the dreadful talks start, one that I will not miss to do myself."

"What would that be?", Robert asked, genuinely curious.

"I am meeting an old friend of mine who is visiting the city and has asked me this morning for one of my dusty old real estates to stay over. Hey... come to think of it, why don't you guys accompany me? He may be a little grumpy at times, but he is a man who has seen a lot of the world. With your way of talking, I am sure you can crack his sour shell!"

Waver resigned. Even if it meant to meet more dubious figures, he had to tag along, even just to satisfy his Servant's whims. He hoped that if he kept in his good graces, he might have a chance at convincing him to join the fray if it mattered the most.

 **Rin**

 _As expected..._

Rin and Kotone stood in front of their late classmate's door. Located in the middle of an apartment block in the more urbanized part of Miyama, close to the bridge. In this corridor it was one door among many. The only noteworthy difference was the yellow police tape that blocked their entrance.

"So... what are we here for?", Kotone asked nervously, obviously unsure what to do.

"We? Well... my plan was for you to be the lookout while I go in and see what I can find out", Rin replied with brutal honesty.

"That's the job of the police, isn't it? And you can't mess with the crime scene, they will notice if someone has broken the tape."

"Silly, you just have to make sure to put it gently back after you leave", Rin smiled as she put her hand on the first stripe, pouring mana into it to temporarily lower its adhesion strength, allowing her to easily pull it off.

Kotone gave a nervous shriek, causing Rin to signal her to keep her mouth shut.

 _I should have found an excuse to leave her behind... but oh well, now it is too late for regrets, I'll just have to make the best use for a second pair of eyes._

"You are now just as involved as I am. So keep quiet and just let me take a look. I will be back before you know it."

Her classmate retreated away to the windows opposing the corridor, but kept both the elevator and Rin in her view.

"Don't you think they have locked the room up?", she asked as Rin had just successfully removed the second and last stripe.

"They have secured it with their big band-aid, haven't they? I am sure they have enough trust to not also lock the door", Rin assured her easily.

In fact, Rin was utterly certain that they had locked the door. She just needed to wait for a moment for Kotone to look away to whisper an "Öffne dich"-spell to the lock for it to snap into a resting position.

"You see?", she declared proudly as she pushed it open.

Before risking another complaint, Rin squeezed through the gap, even though a first wave of stale air was already greeting her. She grimaced as she found herself in the entrance. The whole apartment was filled in darkness and even from the other rooms came not a single ray of light, so she guessed that the windows had been shut tight and the roller shutters lowered. Whether to mark the room as sealed or for the sake of any neighbours trying to peek in, she could not say. All she could say was that even after barely a week after the murder, the sickening iron stench still lingered in the air. Gulping, Rin closed the door behind her and peeled off her shoes as her eyes started to adjust to the darkness.

 _Come on... a Magus walks with death... isn't that how the saying goes?_

Since she had no intention of touching anything at the crime scene, switching on the lights stood out of the question. But instead she pulled one of her quartz crystals out of her pocket that she kept with her for emergencies.

"Es werde Licht!", she whispered and the stone obeyed as it started to emit an impressive glow that pushed the darkness back into the rooms adjacent to the entrance hall.

With this, Rin walked forward. Determined that even though she was no policewoman, she still had one advantage no one else had. A knowledge no else had. There was a trail of yellow plastic signs with numbers of them that went straight to the living room, so Rin decided to follow them to cut right to the chase, since she had no intention of leaving her classmate out there forever.

Unfortunately, the stench originated from here and it felt even more suffocating with every step she was doing. Ignoring the urge to throw up, she leaned into the room.

 _The path of a Magus, huh._

At first it looked more like a burglary than anything else. Someone had thrown the dinner table to the side and emptied book shelves, causing a chaotic mess. But then she saw the stains. There were several patches of black and brown and soon enough she saw entire puddles in front of the TV and in one of the corners. A shiver went through Rin's entire body as she realized that in one of these places her classmate had been murdered.

 _You have to be kidding me... nobody who can call himself human can..._

She felt horrible. And with everything she saw, a voice crept into her mind that kept asking "What are you even doing here? What do you think you can prove?" And yet she pushed onwards anyway. There was no turning back. She couldn't look into a mirror anymore if she hadn't tried everything in her power to help.

Then she passed the table, getting a look at what was behind it.

 _No way..._

There were massive dried bloodstains here. Though they were not there because someone was killed at this place. Someone had applied the blood here, painted it. The lines of the circle were thin and sharp, so that someone had to use a brush or something similar to create it. But what crept Rin even more out was the simple fact that she had seen this circle before. That she had seen these runes before. And that the place where she had seen it, was her own home. The only difference was that her father had it cast with silver to avoid the usage of blood, but it was still virtually the same.

Reflexively, Rin reached for the compass her father had given her as an early birthday present and pulled it out of her shirt. The needle was firmly fixed into the direction of the glowing stone in her hand, but when she placed it on the magic circle, it suddenly decided to try to point at its centre instead, even though it remained restless due to the presence of her own magic.

 _Hasn't father said something about magic being naturally compatible with life force? And that blood magic can convert one to the other even in its rawest state? Despite this, the magic in this circle is so weak..._

It must have been a failure. Even though Rin could hardly stand looking at it, she looked long enough to notice the sloppiness of the handiwork here and there. Someone tried to pour mana into it, but the circle rejected it and therefore the magic signature remained only a faint trace that her compass was barely able to pick up.

 _I cannot imagine such a low residue if a Servant had been successfully summoned here..._

Rin then carefully wandered a little through the rest of the apartment, this time with her compass in hand, but since it barely registered anything else, she soon gave up. Returning to the entrance hall, a lot of conflicting thoughts went through her head.

 _The killer is a Magus. A terrible one, but still. The police... if he successfully summoned a Servant... do they even have a chance to catch him?_

It made no sense to her. The murders had stopped, so there were also a few optimistic possibilities going through her head. There was a slight chance that this guy had managed to kill himself with his foolish magic dabbling, or even that if he had succeeded in summoning a Heroic Spirit, his hero would have killed him the moment he found out what kind of monster he was. They were supposed to be heroes after all... The picture of Arya flashed up in her mind. Of the hardy looking teenage girl who promised her to protect her father. She couldn't imagine that girl willingly cooperating with a person who was capable of such slaughter. Rin looked back one more time. Towards the door of the living room where the darkness was thick enough to block her magic flashlight.

 _I cannot be sure... my father... he has to know that this is the work of someone aspiring to be a Master._

She deactivated her quartz and squeezed once again through the front door, where both the bright daylight and a nervous Kotone awaited her. While Rin was busy reapplying the police tape and removing her simple reverse strengthening spell, her classmate walked up to her with a pained expression.

"I can't believe you did this..."

 _Me neither..._

"I had to", she allowed herself to take a breath. "But I am afraid you were right, there is nothing the student Rin Tohsaka can do that the police can't. I am sorry I dragged you into this."

"Don't be", Kotone replied without much hesitation. "I think I... I needed this is as much as you did. To accept that he hasn't just moved away or something, but that he... that he was really..."

She was close to tearing up. Rin could empathize, with first the funeral and now the visiting of this gruesome apartment his family left behind, it just felt all too real. And yet she felt helpless, unsure how mere words could be of any consolation in this time. After all, she had always preferred actions to help her through moments of weakness, to through herself into solutions instead of letting her own doubts take hold and drag her down.

"Let's get home", she said simply, knowing that she would have to accompany her back.

But even then, Rin could not help but mentally plan her next steps while she walked Kotone to her house.

 _I cannot just go home and face my father like this. Not when I snuck out from my grandparents house and still have nothing worthwhile to offer alongside my apology._

Rin pondered about what she had heard in the news at her grandparents place, the information about these serial killings that had already been published. She then realized that all the incidents so far had been in Miyama, not in Shinto. And Miyama was a place you could scour far more easily than the heavily urbanized eastern part of the city.

 _Maybe the killer lives here. Maybe even close nearby. If I go around with my compass and ask around, I might get more clues. The student Rin Tohsaka might be out of options, but the magus Rin Tohsaka is just getting warm!  
_

 **Jaime**

 _The hell is wrong with these people?_

After a night spent in the car parked at the outskirts of town, Jaime was glad for any kind of roof above his head. But that the walls were made of paper, half rotten paper at that, just struck him as ridiculous.

 _I guess this is supposed to be the 'traditional' housing in this strange world Irisviel mentioned. No wonder she prefers the shed._

She was still weak from her nightly encounter with Arya Stark's sword, but she was already fit enough to complain about not being able to explore the new hideout Kiritsugu had organized for them. Instead she and Kiritsugu retreated to a shed in the yard, the only somewhat sturdy looking part of the mansion, and busied themselves with the drawing of a magic circle that was supposed to charge both Irisviel and the sheath embedded in her. Or at least something along these lines... After all, Jaime had little interest in their magic trickery and since Kiritsugu had stopped speaking to him for a while now, the knight soon grew bored and listless, so he excused himself and started to explore this haunted house.

 _Kinda reminds me of the ruins of Castamere I visited some years ago... and it sure smells just as damp._

Jaime at least saw Kiritsugu's point that nobody would suspect them hiding here. Or at the very least, that anyone could be living in this house, for that matter. Acknowledging that fact, he stepped out into the unkempt and overgrown yard and walked over to the tiny shed where his Lord and Lady dwelled. When he pushed open the door, a bright red glow greeted him, even though it was still awfully dark in there. Kiritsugu paid him no heed, he was kneeling next to Irisviel who was sitting rather uncomfortably on the hard ground, where the magic circle Kiritsugu had drawn emitted the dubious light that was responsible for this ghastly atmosphere. Irisviel however looked towards him, smiling as usual.

"And? How is it?", she asked eagerly.

"Empty, ruined and mouldy all over it", he saw no point in sugar-coating it. "But I am sure you can find some charm in it."

Irisviel giggled softly.

"A place with history then!"

"That's the spirit", despite everything, Jaime smiled back, it was the least he could do.

"I always wanted to see the traditional houses from Kiritsugu's home country", she turned back towards him. "You have remembered, haven't you?"

Her husband scratched the back of his neck, grimacing slightly.

"I would like to take the credit, but I am afraid it was more of a coincidence that this is the most habitable real estate my contact had to offer on this short a notice."

 _He calls this habitable?_

Jaime choked on his suppressed laugh, catching just another glare from Kiritsugu, though this one was noticeably less venomous than the ones he started to get used to. At this point Jaime gave up trying to make sense out of this couple. He had seen Kiritsugu's distraught face when Iri's life was at stake, he had seen the lengths he went to preserve it, how he prayed to his gods and was close to breaking in his struggle. Even now he had spent every wake minute at her side, so Jaime already started to hope that he was seeing the folly of his part, but ended up disappointed. He would not declare to give up on sacrificing her, quite the opposite, he seemed more determined than ever. Of course Irisviel herself then supported him even more, fought against her own failing body even more. It made no sense to Jaime. The more he saw, the more messed up all of this turned out to be.

Kiritsugu sat back, sighed and pushed himself up.

"Saber, a moment please", he went towards the door and signalled Jaime to do likewise. "We have to talk about our strategy from now on."

The edge of reproach was still audible, but Kiritsugu at least kept up the appearance of business as usual. Not willing to tear open any half-healed wounds, Jaime kept his mouth shut and obeyed silently.

"Now that we have confirmed Tohsaka and Kotomine to work together, it is most crucial that we take them out first. Especially since I doubt we can rely on the other Masters to do it for us. They also surely must have seen through our ruse of having Iri stand in as Master for me", Kiritsugu stated matter-of-factly.

 _So this means going against Joffrey and Arya first. Children, what are the Gods thinking?_

He wanted to say that he could handle Joffrey, the little bastard was in dire need of a spanking, but he couldn't dare say something that left the implication that he couldn't handle Arya as well. Which was tricky, given that they'd most likely fight together if it comes to the worst.

 _How is that even possible? The little she-wolf always looked like she regretted not having finished the little shit off back at the Trident last time I saw her and Joff himself is, well, Joffrey. Their Masters must have tricked them with some sinister magic..._

Kiritsugu must have seen his pained expression and was obviously not amused:

"I cannot say that I cannot completely understand your hesitation at the killing of a child. Under other, less dire circumstances, I would like to avoid it as well. But you know what is at stake", he raised his hand and pointed threateningly on his command spell. "I don't want to waste them, but the next time we face them, I will have to make sure you comply."

Jaime didn't reply, he was just meeting his Master's stare with one of his own. Thankfully, Kiritsugu didn't ponder long on his magic leash.

"Openly attacking the Tohsaka mansion will likely just spring another trap. But if Kotomine acts like I expects him to do, he will make use of Assassin's abilities to scout the area and might expose himself doing this. Beating him at his own game will be our best chance. Will be my best chance, that is."

"You want to set up a trap?"

"Yes... but he will be cautious if you accompany me. Unlike Assassin, you cannot hide your presence. So I will have no choice but leave you with Iri for the time being and-", he choked on his words, irritated.

And Jaime was as well. A tingling feeling overcame him. It was similar to the presence of Joffrey or Oberyn, far stronger, but for some reason he felt no hostile intent.

"The boundary field has collapsed", Kiritsugu realized.

"An intruder?"

"With a bound Servant."

Jaime looked back at Irisviel, who was still sitting within the magic circle, following their conversation intently.

"Don't bother yourself with me. I can take care of myself", she declared.

This time Kiritsugu was hesitating. Jaime could virtually see the possibilities rattling inside his mind as he was weighing whether they should make a stand here or intercept them outside.

"She is right, we have to go before they come here", Jaime added, though he was wondering why the enemy wasn't already knocking at their door, given that the boundary field at the castle covered much more ground and Joffrey still jumped at them with barely any delay.

"Fine, come with me", Kiritsugu checked his gun hidden in his pocket and went for the door.

Opening it just slightly, he motioned to Jaime that he should check the outside. Of course he complied, thinking that if the enemy was prone to shoot an arrow into the eye of the first one to leave, he had the highest chance to actually shrug it off. Though he was relieved of that notion when he peeked through the gap and no violent attack happened. Instead he saw several figures wandering through the living room on the other end of the yard. The living room he could see into due to the sliding doors being left wide open.

"I see an old man in a local garment, a green boy and...", his eyes widened as the black-bearded giant stepped into the yard, wearing casual jeans and shirt and yet pointing at their direction.

 _What in the seven hells is happening here?_

"... the fat oaf. For what it's worth, it doesn't look like he wants to fight."

Kiritsugu looked back towards Irisviel. He seemed to weigh his option to send her out alongside Jaime again, but since she looked nowhere ready to get up and fight, he had to begrudgingly bury his ploy for good.

"Fine, let's see what they want."

With this the two men left the shed and finally intercepted the group of unwelcome visitors. Folding his arms Robert stayed back and observed the situation with a deep frown, something that left the young boy at his side confused and unsure whether to remain with him or to accompany the old man. The latter was still walking towards them with a bright smile.

"Oh, hello Emiya, long time not seen!", he called out. "Sorry for intruding, but you didn't reply to my ringing of the bells, though I hadn't expected you to hide out here."

"And I hadn't expected you to come with company", Kiritsugu shot back, though he softened up upon remembering that the man was supposed to be a friend. "It is still good to see you again, old man."

"Ah, please forgive old Raiga, it just seemed rude to ditch these pleasant young men", he gestured to introduce them. "The shy one is Waver Velvet, a student from abroad, while the muscle man besides him is-"

"Robert Baratheon", Jaime Lannister hissed.

The old man raised his eyebrows in surprise, both about the rude interruption and about the fact that the world proved absurdly small.

"Though I have to admit, I have barely recognized you", Jaime sneered. "How many stones have you lost since the last time I saw you? Eight? Or is it nine?"

"You have changed as well, Lannister", the thick oaf growled back. "Nice suit. And I like the beard. Makes you look less like a cunt."

 _Less like my sweet sister, you mean._

The atmosphere was murderous. Jaime just waited for an excuse to summon his armour and finish him then and there, witnesses be damned. Though he was a little irritated about the sweat that came running down his brow. He was never nervous at the prospect of a good fight and he was still pretty sure that hadn't changed.

"So... what a coincidence, huh", Kiritsugu's contact gave an unsure laugh. "I hadn't expected your partner and my recent acquaintance to be familiar with each other, Emiya."

"A coincidence, yes", was the tense hitman's absentminded answer.

"How exactly are you guys related then?", the old man must have felt the uncomfortable silence, but he still tried to salvage the situation.

"I used to work for him", Jaime admitted with a sly smile, the emphasis lay on 'used to'.

"I see."

Several seconds passed like this. It was now the boy who tried to defuse the situation:

"Should we... go back and wait at the car or something?"

"It might be better. To be frank, I didn't come to pick a fight", Baratheon admitted. "Well then... good to know that you are still around, Kingslayer."

"Until the next time", Jaime instinctively went for his knowing smile. "Watch your step on the way out."

The two trespassers retreated. They should have known that they had shredded Kiritsugu's makeshift boundary field and still went to see who dwelled here, so the implication was clear that they wanted to take a peek regardless of their intrusion into a Mage's workshop. The old man sighed as he watched them go.

"I'm sorry, Emiya, it seems I shouldn't have brought them after all."

"Don't worry too much, Raiga. I haven't told you about my business partner here either."

As it turned out, the old man was the owner of the ruin they had found themselves in and he and Kiritsugu had planned to meet here to get the final formalities done, even though one of his underlings had already given them the keys to this place. It seemed this whole meeting was more of an excuse by the old man to chat with Kiritsugu and he still tried to provoke a small conversation about past misadventures, but the mood proved thoroughly soured already. After getting the formalities over with, Raiga excused himself and left as well, leaving a stumped Jaime and an angry Kiritsugu behind.

"What now?", Jaime asked half bemused, half serious.

"We are back where we started", the Magus Killer growled, then sighed. "This one goes on my head for once. I shouldn't have relied on Fujimura, knowing his trusting nature."

"Come on, nobody would have expected him to just introduce us to Rider, right?", Jaime brushed it off.

"Still. This place is already compromised. Let's tell Iri and go back to the hotel before he comes back. Or worse, tells Kotomine of our location."

Jaime thought it unlikely that Robert would barge in under the light of day and with no boundary field to stop the neighbours from worrying. But then again, this was Robert Baratheon...

"I hope this hotel room of yours has not been reserved by others in the meantime", Jaime quipped on the way back to the shed.

 **Rin**

 _Note to myself: There are far more houses in Miyama than I expected there to be._

It was a simple fact, but it was enough to disillusion her a little about what she expected to find. She had walked Kotone home, returned and just started to walk all the houses and all the apartment doors up with her trusty compass in hand, intending to find more magical traces in the area. It proved difficult enough though. In the direct vicinity there was nothing to find, even though she expected some kind of reaction after the summoning of a Servant vessel. After all it needed a magic circle with a direct connection to the leyline and a Servant vessel itself is such a powerful familiar that it should be nigh impossible to hide, so she had to assume that the circle itself must contain some residue afterwards.

 _Or at least that's what I hope it does. If I had known that I had to find another circle, I would have pestered father a lot more when he installed the magic circle in the cellar._

The sun was already about to set, painting the sky with a melancholic orange. Rin was sure that by now her mother was starting to worry about her and if she found her note about going to the funeral, she would certainly already be on her way to Fuyuki. She felt guilty about causing such worries, but the moment thoughts of surrender crossed her mind, she slapped both her cheeks and took a deep breath.

 _Calm down, Rin. You are a Tohsaka. Tohsaka's finish what they begin. And in any case, I will get a scolding anyway so the least I can do is getting something to show for it._

With this in mind she headed for the next building. She noticed that she unconsciously gave a more thorough look to western style family homes and apartments of higher quality, thinking that a Magus would hardly live in a shabby apartment complex like the one she was currently heading for. Now she reminded herself that she wasn't looking for a Magus, but likely for a rookie, so she should leave all options open to her when she climbed the stairs to the entrances and started to walk the doors down.

 _At least in the Western style district of Miyama I can still get somewhat close to the living spaces. I would have a hard time in the quarter with the Japanese style mansions._

After hours of failure she hardly expected anything to change right now, but when she passed one of the doors, she noticed that the needle of her compass swayed with a small delay as if it got stuck on a little glue. It was barely noticeable, but it was enough to give her a little pause and caused her to take a few backwards steps to see whether she could repeat this result. She could. With wide eyes, she looked up and compared the door to all the others. It was virtually the same, no defining feature that could give her another clue. Biting her lip, she stood on her toes to take a look at the letters above the bell.

 _Uryuu?_

She never heard this name before, never once did it appear among the illustrious visitors her father received every once in a while. Soon enough she found herself staring at the door, not knowing how to proceed from here.

 _Now this is embarrassing. By now I should have thought up what to do in case I find something._

Entering without making sure that nobody was there seemed suicidal. But from here she couldn't see whether there were any windows to peek into either.

 _Maybe on the other side..._

Rin was just about to leave as she noticed an old woman with grocery bags climbing the stairs. She took note of the girl standing around in front of her neighbour, but proceeded towards her own door without paying her any further heed. When the woman was scrounging through her bags, likely looking for her keys, Rin saw an opportunity to strike.

"Excuse me, obaa-san, can you help me with a little something", she approached her deliberately cute.

"Oh, of course little Miss, are you looking for someone?", the woman asked back.

"I was trying to find the one who picked up a toy of mine I lost at the playground nearby. I was told he lives here", she pointed towards the Uryuu apartment. "But it seems I have missed him. Can you tell me where to find him?"

"No wonder you can't find him, this boy is practically living at the Ryuudou-temple lately."

"Is he?", Rin acknowledged with relieve.

She remembered her father mentioning something a long time ago about the temple being a point with strong magical energy. It made sense for her that a Magus would seek it out.

"Why?", she implored.

"To help out Lady Melisandre I assume...", the woman said innocently.

 _Now this sounds like an ominous name..._

"To be honest, I have known this Uryuu boy for most of his life and I've regarded him as a lost case for most of it. He was always hanging out near the playgrounds, bored and picking up fights and he had something creepy about him like he wasn't quite right in the head", the old woman prattled on. "When he grew to adulthood, I thought he'd take up a little responsibility, but instead he turned into a lazy slob who holed himself up at home all day. It all changed only a short while ago, when the people here were stressed out about these gruesome murders and then the terror attacks and he suddenly ended up the red lady's staunchest supporter, introducing her to us and helping out with our festivities with a vigour I had never seen from him before."

"Festivities?", Rin asked, having a very bad feeling about this.

"Ah, nothing too fancy. Just a little show of force that the people of Fuyuki don't let themselves get intimidated easily, that we can still go out at night in spite of the so-called danger, especially when we are under the protection of the Red God and his spirits."

"Okay...", she assumed to have heard enough, this couldn't be a coincidence.

"So when you want to ask Uryuu whether he found your toy, you better go to the temple. He must surely be busy with the preparations for tonight's bonfire."

"Then I will go there", Rin replied evasively.

"And if you have the time, you could bring your parents and stay there, little Miss. I am about to come as well, you know."

"Maybe", she made a deep bow. "Thank you very much for your help. I will be on my way then."

She hurried away, but not very far to be sure. She observed the lady entering her apartment from afar and when everything seemed clear, she ran back up the stairs again and went to the Uryuu apartment.

"Öffne dich!", she ordered the lock and the lock complied with a clicking sound.

 _If nothing comes out of my Magus career, it seems I can always fall back upon burglary._

Rin rolled her eyes about her own thoughts.

 _Not really the most elegant pastime, huh? Father would be furious even if I'd joke about this._

She entered the apartment, got rid of her shoes and sneaked into the messy main room that was obviously used as both a bedroom, living room and garbage bin as the table packed with empty ramen cups next to the rolled up tatami mattress accounted for. The damp smell of old instant meals was nauseous, but this day Rin had smelled worse before. Here at least no one had been killed, or she hoped at least.

 _Not very elegant either..._

Rin had no desire to scrounge through the piles of smelly wastes, so she fetched her compass again and let it decide where she should look.

 _Let's see, if I were a poor amateur magus in a run-down apartment, where would I construct my workshop?_

The needle pointed right ahead. And right ahead she went, towards the low dinner table and amidst the chaos her compass pointed towards a worn out handbook that was taking on dust right in the middle of it.

 _Seriously?_

Rin decided that she was in no position to complain about this being too easy. She picked the book up, carefully, just in case it would try to eat her, but she immediately realized that it was just a regular notebook without any inherent magical properties. The part the compass was drawn to however was the hardened black coat the backside and the bottom of the book were drenched in. Grimacing, Rin took a careful sniff at it.

 _Blood._

It smelled just like at the crime scene she had sneaked in before. She felt like vomiting, or at least like throwing it away as hard as she could. But this wouldn't do. She opened it, hearing the pages cracking and ripping where they were glued together by the dried fluid. As she had noticed before, it was a simple notebook, if a bit old. There was a date in one of the front pages, apparently it was written down in the early Shouwa period. When leafing through it hurriedly, she recognized handwritten passages about the Holy Grail War, about Servant summoning and of course about the construction of magic circles. Rin closed it, feeling ill.

 _I've found him..._

Even the blood was proof enough. The compass only reacted because it had been infused with mana, which means that it came from one of these hideous circles this Uryuu had created, maybe even the one at Kensuke's house. Sure enough, this was not the kind of evidence the police would be interested in, but she had no doubt that the book itself and maybe the rest of the apartment would certainly contain more conclusive ones. Not that the police could do much against him. Because Rin was sure that the worst possible outcome had happened.

 _The red lady... surely she was the one he summoned. So he did it. And she didn't kill him for his actions._

Now the only remaining question was, just how dangerous a serial killer making a shot at the Holy Grail could actually be.

 **Kariya**

The chilly air announced the arrival of winter in Fuyuki. Especially here at the height of a rooftop it was already cold enough for the breath of Kotomine Kirei to already be visible. The fake priest crouched down over his bagged prey, removing the camera attached to it with a knowing smile. It was a bat familiar, a dead animal revived with magic only to get killed again by one of these throwing knifes. Kariya knew how it felt like to be skewered by those while having his mind inside a familiar, even though he wasn't sure whether the owner of this construct of low-level necromancy would receive the same amount of pain he received each time it happened to him. He himself watched the entire scene through the eyes of one of Zouken's wretched insect familiars born out of his own flesh and the magical energy created by devouring him. He had trailed Tohsaka's ally through half of Shinto as he was prowling through dark back alleys and rooftops that were supposed to be closed to the public. Kariya told himself that he had gotten better at subterfuge, but part of him was still dreading that Kotomine knew he was being watched and only grew tired of taking down his familiars now that he had already killed half a dozen of them. Not that it bothered Kariya that much. The pain of being skewered was nothing in comparison to the pain of being eaten alive, in fact he found it oddly relieving. In any case, he kept a few dozen of these airborne crest worms in the area to replace his main eye every time one gets killed and to replace it fast enough that he was still able to catch up to Kotomine whenever the priest tried to get some distance between himself and his tracker. Even though he was weak, Kariya wanted to prove himself persistent if nothing else.

His only regret in this situation was that he could only have one pair of eyes at once. He would have gladly watched over both Kotomine and Tohsaka, but since this was outside of his abilities, he focused on the prowling priest and relied on his knowledge that the craven Tohsaka was too afraid of soiling his fine dresses to actually leave his home. Or at least Kariya, who had indeed kept watch over him for several days, always found him holed up at his mansion, trusting on his Servant and his magic security fields to keep him safe.

 _As if those could protect him from my Berserker..._

That was another one of his problems as well. Who would protect _him_ from his Berserker? This mad beast proved completely unconcerned in regards to his mana consumption and each time Kariya tried to make him manifest outside his spirit form, he felt the crest worms inside of him boiling alive. So far he refrained from using him in combat, unsure whether he would survive even a single bout if his Servant kept draining him like this. He had to be used as a scalpel, cutting at the right place at the right time to make the most of it. Everything else would be suicidal. Therefore Kariya kept his brute on the leash like a joker up his sleeve while he did the scouting work.

 _I hope the bastard proves strong enough to make up for this torment..._

Impatiently he resumed his watch. The priest seemed very interested in that familiar, interested enough to specifically hunt it down instead of his crest worms. And now that he obtained the camera, he had left the rooftop and casually mingled among the residents below, making his way to a less populated part of town.

 _Let's see what he is up to._

The winged worm swung himself into the air and followed silently.

* * *

Final author's note: If you want to break all remaining shreds of suspense and finish your picture of this being a breather chapter, imagine that in the first part Arya saw herself forced to carry Kotomine bridal style to escape! You're welcome...


	8. Chapter 8 - Terrors of the Night

Chapter 8 - Terrors of the Night

 **Rin**

Rin never liked the temple grounds. Maybe it was this strong atmosphere of Japanese tradition that interfered with her very western magic. Since there was indeed a strong source of local magic to be found there, it could indeed be considered like mixing oil and water. Or at least this is what Rin thought to herself. That this was not a place Rin Tohsaka was welcome at. This, or that it was just a naturally spooky place, especially at night. As Rin climbed the narrow steps, she felt a freezing cold overcoming her and the unkempt wilderness to her left and to her right were only emphasising the darkness that had this place in its grip. Even then, this might be only what she saw, knowing what awaited her. The other people who climbed it alongside her seemed to be more focused on the orange glow that escaped through the roof of the temple like a nightly beacon. Some were chattering in anticipation while others were hurrying, knowing that they were a little late for the spectacle. In any case, it were surprisingly many people.

The last time she had been here with her class on a field trip, the widely spaced plaza within the temple grounds had been empty. But after she now passed the main gate, she was greeted by a dense crowd that completely covered every inch of the place. Just as the old woman had described a large bonfire had been mounted in the centre of everything, but from beneath the gate she was barely able to make out the tip, the rest of her view was blocked by countless people's backs who watched in awe. Only the cackling of the flames and the chanting of a woman was audible as she was unsuccessfully trying to go around the crowd.

 _This is madness, half of Miyama must be here..._

There were many old people, but there were also families with children, singles, couples and people from various professional backgrounds. It was a pretty representative extract of this side of Mion river. And while the religious chants of "Lord of Light protect us" were pretty ominous to Rin herself, most of the gathered people were quite relaxed about the whole issue. They greeted each other, talked about the winter and their hopes for the year, they talked about the neighbours they had seen here, about most recent gossip. There were benches brought out for people to sit upon and there were stands that offered refreshments in drink and food. Like the old woman said, it was a just a fair to them, a festival to come together and connect the neighbourhood. Though they were a little too thickly connected for Rin's liking as she was struggling to pass through the mass of people.

 _Fine... if I can't get through them with politeness..._

"Excuse me! I'm sorry! I'm totally sorry! I didn't intend to, but I have to... I'm very sorry", Rin was dropping a flurry of apologetic phrases as she pushed herself through the jungle of legs, uncaring of the collateral damage.

She was somewhat more successful with this approach and soon enough she found herself nearing the heat and the bitter smell of smoke that filled the night air.

"I'm sorry..."

Then she reached the front row and stood right in front of the flaming inferno that was the bonfire. While everyone around her was casually relaxed, Rin fetched her compass once again. It didn't have the violent reaction her father had warned her about yet, but the needle was still deeply confused, racing into every direction at once.

 _This isn't right, even with the interference of the boundary field this shouldn't happen._

"Let the blessing of the Lord overflow you, may his warmth protect you of the cold darkness!", a woman's voice was wailing over the crowd, a commanding voice pure as honey and yet with a strong edge. "Darkness may come, the old enemy may try to sow dissent and fear, but light will always prevail!"

Rin found the litany pretty cheesy as she skirted the edge of the bonfire to draw closer to the voice. It was quite distant and yet strong enough to overcome the dissonance of all these people. Meanwhile Rin found herself still pondering about the meaning of the bonfire itself. Her compass seemed not quite as useless as it did a moment before, as it started to fling back pointing towards the centre of the plaza again and again. Soon enough Rin realized that the movement itself, the swaying back and forth between the bonfire and the people closest to her, was not a coincidence, but rather exactly how the flow of mana in this place took place.

 _Don't tell me..._

It was a dreadful thought, one she wanted to deny vehemently. But she remembered what she had overheard from her father's preparations about Servants and Heroic Spirits. About how these Spirits were essentially soul-eaters who could sustain themselves by...

 _No... no, no, this can't be..._

And yet it all made sense if she viewed it this way. The sudden attraction of these people to a foreign religion, the gatherings, the ritual under the supervision of...

"Rin?", a voice behind her called out.

The girl froze mid-movement. The voice was all too familiar.

"Rin, you really are here as well?", Kotone came up from behind. "I didn't take you for the type to like festivals like this."

"And you would be right", she retorted weakly, too stumped to come up with a lie. "But why exactly are you here?"

Kotone shrugged.

"My parents thought it would be a nice change instead of holing up at home. Actually it's our second time here. There weren't nearly as many people here two days ago."

"I think holing up at home would be safer...", Rin said evasively. "I was just about to leave myself."

"Why?", her classmate was genuinely confused. "They are just about to give out the wooden chips."

Rin was impatient to get out of here, she even started to imagine her energy getting slowly drained as she was speaking. And yet she couldn't let Kotone behind.

"What do you mean with chips?"

"It's the main event of the bonfire. We throw them into the fire while praying for a wish the red God shall grant."

"I think I take a pass on that...", she wanted to leave it at this, but unexpectedly, the once so shy Kotone grabbed her hand.

"Since when are you like this? Just try it out! I am sure you feel more relieved afterwards", and with this she dragged her along the edge of the crowd.

Rin was still half in a haze. This sudden and unexpected meeting had somehow managed to throw her out of whack, or at least she felt unable to resist her as much as she would have liked. And this despite her knowledge that every further minute spent here was putting her at risk. After all, she only wanted to find out whether anyone was in danger of the serial killer.

 _Wait, why do I feel so dizzy?_

She shook her head violently. Something was not alright, not alright at all. When her head started to get back on track Kotone had already stopped and they found themselves in front of a red-haired young man carrying a large basket in one hand, giving out the wooden chips inside to the people who had lined up in front of him. These chips were all formed differently, as if they were once a greater thing that was sliced into pieces to create them. Rin had a bad feeling about where exactly they came from.

"Good evening Uryuu-san", Kotone approached him innocently.

Rin felt her throat clenching.

 _It can't be_ that _Uryuu, can it be?_

The man looked down with a pleasant smile as he was recognizing the girl.

"Ah Kotone-chan, nice to see you again. I started to get worried that we have bored you when you didn't come yesterday", his eyes then focused on Tohsaka, he seemed pleasant and without even a hint of malicious intent, but there was something wrong with the eyes themselves, they somehow felt empty. "And you brought a friend, I see? May the Lord of Light protect you as well! For the night is dark and full of terrors!"

He reached into the basked and fetched two chips which he offered the girls so that they didn't have to step into the queue. Kotone took hers immediately, but Rin hesitated. She couldn't take her eyes off his hand. His right hand. With bright red marks burned into the flesh. Red marks just like her father had.

 _He is a Master... no, he is..._

Rin took a step backwards, wide-eyed and feeling cold all over. She tried to get a grasp on her situation, but with people everywhere, making a quick dash for the exit seemed out of the question.

"Don't be shy, take it!", Uryuu kept his arm outstretched, he seemed genuinely distraught at her reaction.

"You... you...", Rin pressed these words through her knotted throat. "You... killed Kensuke!"

The smile of the man didn't even faltered one bit.

"I'm not exactly sure I understand..."

"You are the killer everyone is looking for! You killed our classmate!"

Kotone stepped away from the two of them, obviously unsure what to think of Rin's words, but obviously not lulled in enough as to not realize the implications of her possibly being right. Rin felt a moment of triumph, because it was the proof she needed that the spell that affected these people was not turning them into mindless puppets and that Rin could be able to break them free with words alone.

"My, my, ojou-chan, you should be careful with strong accusations like this", the guy replied soothingly, but it didn't seem like he was intending to stop her by force.

Rin took off her backpack and took out the blood-stained notebook she had found in his house and presented it to him.

"This is yours, I found it in your house! You do remember it, don't you? You do remember that you used it when you killed these people!"

He flinched. For a second it seemed that his empty stare regained focus, but he snapped back so fast Rin started to think that she just imagined it.

"Please, refrain from such reckless accusations when bathing in the light of our god. You just bring disarray to this peaceful gathering", he answered, maybe even more absentmindedly.

Rin turned around, turned towards the queue in front of Uryuu. They all looked at her with visible frowns, some muttering, but most were just annoyed and slightly confused about the delay. Even Kotone seemed doubtful towards Rin's words.

"Please Kotone, take your parents and leave!", Rin pleaded, but the other girl just looked back sceptically.

At once Rin felt awfully helpless. She took another step away, now sure that she had no choice but to retreat, giving up on the people gathered here, giving up even on Kotone. Her heart cramped at the thought, but the only option she had was to reach her father and ask him to intervene immediately.

"Ah, the daughter of the illborn's doomed Master", a woman's voice cut through the night air. "Welcome Rin Tohsaka, I have already awaited you to join our ranks."

... then she came into her view, as if stepping out of the bonfire itself. The red woman. There was no mistaking. She was the one who had been speaking to the crowd in front of the bonfire, the one with the marvellous red dress, flowing red hair, the red ruby glowing at her throat and even red eyes that seemed to sparkle along with the flames. A foreign woman that one might have found beautiful under a different light, but here she looked just red and terrible and red.

The girl's entire body felt frozen in place as she watched the lady Melisandre approaching. Only the violent shaking and sparkling coming from her chest was it that shook her out of it. Her compass was reacting. Danger. 'A magic far greater than you could handle', that was what her father had said about such a reaction. Her legs reacted faster than her mind could. She left Kotone and jumped into the crowd. And as if directed by a magic hand, she managed to find a path without stumbling, without running against any leg that wasn't fast enough to step a side. She wouldn't give up so easily.

"Nobody should be afraid of the light!", Rin heard the red woman's voice echo behind her. "Bring this fearful child me! A great darkness threatens to swallow her, she can only be protected by the warmth of the Lord!"

She darted to the left, to the right, again to the right. People were blocking her way everywhere and Rin soon realized that in her headless flight she had not been able to take the shortest path towards the temple gate, but instead got somehow directed into one of the corners of the plaza. She was trapped. The moment she realized that, a forceful pair of hands grabbed her from behind. Rin threw her head back, she was barely able to realize that a local teenage girl had taken her before her feet lost touch to the ground as she was pulled into the air. Before she could react, she found herself pressed with her back against the older and far taller girl's chest, with both pairs of arms intertwined in a way that she couldn't move hers at all.

"Don't struggle", the girl's voice whispered.

 _The hell I do!_

Rin tried to wriggle herself out of this tight grip, kicking and screaming, but it was like the girl's legs were made of steel. Even before any hope that she would loosen her grip was crushed, Rin looked up and saw the crowd in front of her parting as if guided by an invisible hand. In the middle of it, the red woman walked towards them with graceful steps.

"Well done, girl", these words were obviously pointed at her captor, she wasn't even looking at Rin. "Now bring her to me!"

"I am sorry, I can't do that", the girl snapped back and Rin imagined to see the forming of a smile in the periphery of her view.

The red woman's features derailed. But before she could react in any kind, Rin felt the air brushing violently across her body as her vision blurred. She and the girl who took her captive were flung into the night air, something so absurd and sudden that Rin was unable to suppress a shriek and then a painful grunt when they landed abruptly on the temple roof with a force strong enough to press the air out of her lungs. Before her mind was able to process what just happened, the whole thing repeated once again, accompanied by the dim bang of feet violently kicking the roof tiles. The next moment they found themselves back on the ground, now on the pavement in front of the stairs leading back to Fuyuki. Even her feet touched the ground again as she was released from that terrifying grip that left her bruised and wobbly all over.

Scared and confused, Rin stepped away from the unfamiliar girl, unsure whether this was a rescue or just a different form of captivity. The girl however seemed bemused about her distrust.

"Come on, don't you remember my face?", she said with a smirk, before rubbing with both her hands over it.

When she removed her hands, Rin felt irritated. A short moment ago she could swear that the one who had taken her was some local girl, but now even in the darkness of the woods she was unmistakably a foreigner. A foreigner she indeed remembered.

"Arya!", she exclaimed in astonishment.

"It is good to see you too, stupid", Kirei's Servant shot back. "But now we should keep going before the red priestess sends her followers."

Rin nodded, clenching her fists. It was this moment she realized that she had lost the notebook of Melisandre's Master in the confusion. She regretted the loss of her best evidence, but there was no turning back. She put one step after another, climbing the narrow steps down into the darkness, hurrying and yet careful as not to tumble. Arya followed easily next to her. There was no conversation and, most of all, no reproaches as she might have expected in such a situation. They were only focused on their flight down the dark and hostile mountain, with every branch of the surrounding bushes looking like it wanted to grab them. It was a long path down, though, and soon enough when the adrenaline subsided, Rin started to hear her own pounding heart as it drowned out even her ragged breath. It was a just gut-feeling for sure, but Rin could swear that they were being chased. By something that soundlessly and tirelessly caught up to them. She told herself that it was just her imagination, but she found her dreadful thoughts confirmed when Arya stopped abruptly and whirled around. Rin herself came to an immediate halt as well, but she could barely hold herself upon her feet after turning around. It was like her exhaustion caught up with her as she found herself gasping for air.

 _And we are just half-way down..._

Rin looked up and a cold shiver went through her spine. There was indeed _something_ that was moving down the hill. But it was barely visible. If it was one large creature or several, she could not see, but she saw several pairs of black arms and legs and yet it was not moving with them, it was more like it was sliding down the steps, hitchhiking on the darkness. No, evem that was not quite right. Their pursuer was the darkness itself that crept forward with surreal speed. And the worst part was the noise or rather the lack of it. No hissing, no whirling, not even a sliding sound of their movements. Just like the shadows they were made of, their enemy seemed intangible and therefore utterly unstoppable.

"Stay behind me!", Arya ordered, unsheathing a slender blade that was shining in the moonlight.

Rin obeyed, even if only because her legs felt heavy and sluggish as clay. So she watched Arya stepping forward and confronting the living shadows which manifested in front of her. Now that they looked more humanoid while standing still, Rin saw that it was three of them facing the teenage girl and her sword with short daggers. Arya then dashed forward, not wasting a single second as she disappeared in a blur, stabbing at the first one and cutting through the other two. It happened so fast they couldn't even counterattack. The whole battle seemed over... except that the shadows refused to die. There were no wounds caused by the girl's sword, its blade just passed through their intangible enemies as if through air and even before Arya could adjust to this simple fact, they lunged after her. The girl evaded the first strike, danced around the second, but when the third came, the first came back to make it double. Without any more room to manoeuvre, the girl assassin threw herself desperately to the ground, only capable of escape by rolling down the stairs right in front of Rin's feet.

"Arya!", she shrieked, fearing that they might have wounded her.

But even though an ordinary human would have ended up covered in bruises after such a stunt, Arya immediately jumped back to her feet with catlike agility. Just in time as the shadows were closing in and Rin saw herself confronted with their otherworldly daggers moving through the darkness. Before it reached her, Arya tackled her out of the way with enough force that it pressed the air out of her lungs once again and she ended up coughing violently after they crashed into a platform quite a bit downstairs. Kirei's heroic spirit might have cushioned most of the fall, but Rin's body still ached all over when Arya untangled herself from her and turned back towards the shadows which were already closing in fast.

"A certain teacher once told me that fear cuts deeper than swords", the girl suddenly said, remarkably calmly even though her eyes were fixated on her enemies. "It means that no matter how much someone could possibly hurt you, giving in to fear would change nothing but take you the ability to fight back."

She readied her sword, taking on a scorpion-like fighting position. The girl who had saved Rin was about to engage in a battle she could never possibly win and yet showed utter determination. Rin was awestruck, but not too awestruck to stop her brain from going through all the possibilities, through all her options. Arya's words rang true to her. She could not just give up and give in to her fear. She had to take everything she got, bet everything at her disposal, because there would be no second chances. She reached into her pocket, desperately clinging to the only thing she found in it. And with the same desperation she held it in front of her. Her quartz crystal. And she shouted with all her might:

"Maximales Licht!"

The crystal flared up and pushed back the darkness with a violence that burned and hurt her eyes. And yet she never dared to close them, so she watched how bright daylight drove back even the living shadows, seemingly swallowing them. Arya took a step backwards and when her own shadow disappeared, the entire pathway in front of them was illuminated even brighter than the day.

"Good thinking!", the girl assassin acknowledged, obviously just as surprised about Rin's trick as Rin was surprised about the fact that it actually worked.

Though when the first shock settled down, Rin realized that her simple light spell wasn't quite as deadly as she thought. In the shadows behind stretched out branches and bushes something was stirring and lurking. It seemed like all she did was pushing back the shadows, forcing them to hide in those spots of the pathway her light couldn't possibly reach. In fact, they swayed back and forth with every movement of her hand, mimicking the shadows generated by her fingers gripping the gemstone, waiting for a moment to strike.

"Why don't they just go around us?", she asked awestruck.

"The bounded field of the temple", Arya replied with wide eyes. "I can only enter the temple grounds using this pathway. I have to assume the same goes for them. So... we trap them if we keep this up. How long does your stone last?"

Rin grimaced, her bravery slightly faltering.

"With this output? A few minutes at most! Though I have taken a couple of them with me."

"Better hurry then...", Arya decided, holding her left hand out to Rin. "Does it still work if you give it to me?"

"It is the stone doing the spell, I just released it, so you can have it", she handed over her crystal, carefully making sure that no finger got into the way of the light heading upwards.

Now that Arya had the stone in her steady hand, Rin could let herself get carried by her with her free arm. This way they managed to rush down the steps a lot faster with quick jumps as when they had tried to walk down. Still, the shadows proved persistent and Arya was forced to constantly scatter them and push them back with their light whenever they threatened to catch up. Meanwhile Rin just clung to the girl's chest, clenching her teeth as she watched the eerie dark forest surrounding them rush past her view.

 _This is insanity..._

The quartz wavered and died shortly before they reached the exit of the forest. Giving up on scattering them with such a dim light as the shadows now easily pierced it, Arya saw herself forced to speed up while Rin was taking another one out of her pocket and invoked her spell.

"Maximales Licht!"

Arya turned around and allowed Rin scatter the darkness behind them. They had reached the exit of the forest, but now the true battle began. They had left the protection of the mountain's bounded field, so they couldn't stop the shadows from just going circles around them for a pincer attack. Even worse, the forest wasn't just directly connected to Miyama's foreigner's district, there was a large patch of empty meadows between them and the safety of civilization.

 _Please let it end... Please..._

"Hang on!", Arya urged confidently. "I will have to increase the speed a little."

Rin nodded weakly, a nod that was returned by an eager Arya.

"Don't worry, we'll make it!"

Rin clenched her teeth once again and closed her eyes. That must have been the sign for the girl assassin, as she sprinted onwards. The only thing Rin felt was the heavy wind whipping against her face and the heavy sways of Arya's movements. After a particularly heavy turbulence Rin dared to open her eyes and found herself once again having been flung into the air. And once again she winced as they landed abruptly on the roof tiles of a house.

 _We already reached- urgh..._

She couldn't even finish her thought as just another jump pushed her against gravity's embrace. And then another. And another. And another. At this point Rin pressed her eyes closed once again, but she was certain that Arya kept jumping from roof to roof. Their only certainty was that stopping equalled death.

 _Please, please..._

Tears swelled up in her eyes, but then she remembered Arya's words. It was not over yet and fear cut deeper than swords.

Then came the first soft landing in a while. A landing accompanied by a tingling feeling in her chest. The feeling of a boundary field that they had passed. A feeling she knew all too well, because she felt it almost every day when she returned from school. Rin opened her eyes and couldn't believe what she saw amidst the cold darkness of the night: The proud walls of home.

 _We made it!_

As if to crush her hopes, Arya whirled around and a dazed Rin looked up at what was happening. And to kick her hopes further down, the shadows entered the boundary field as well. Though this one proved less of a stone wall like the one around the Ryuudo-temple and more of a deadly automatic firing system. The first shadow was torn apart by a violet beam, the second one burst into flame and shattered, but through the opening given through their sacrifices the third one rushed onwards towards them, his black dagger in hand. Rin remembered that her right hand still held her second crystal, clasping it so tight that it only made her hand glow faintly. She opened it up, hoping for the shadow to be pushed away like it did on the temple pathway. But instead it just shoved the shadow to the left, where it charged them under the protection of the shadow of her thumb holding the crystal. Arya stumbled backwards, trying to evade, but it was too fast and she was too sluggish with Rin in her arms. The dagger darted forward, sharp and deadly and dark as the blackest night.

A cackling sound appeared and the shadow that had been disturbingly silent so far gave a miserable shriek as it was ripped to shreds from the inside until it had completely faded away. All what was left was a black sword with red ripples running across its whole length. Red ripples which flared up menacingly the same time it touched the shadow, causing it to emit a dirty blood red light. Holding the sword in hand was a blonde teenage boy with a smug grin.

"How pitiful", he sneered. "Half a woman grown and still afraid of your own shadow!"

Arya let go of her, but Rin thought it was a little rough for her liking when she was dropped on the grass.

"You defeated it, how?", she asked dryly.

"How it should be defeated, by hitting it with my sword!", the blonde boy made a swing with the dark blade, the glowing lines had disappeared by now.

"You are lucky it actually worked...", Arya grunted. "If you are so proud about your feat, you can guard our backs while I bring Rin back inside."

The boy turned away from her, staring at the darkness with a pouting face.

"Tch, you are not one to order me around, wolf pup", and yet he remained there, waiting for them to retreat.

Arya rolled her eyes, but motioned to Rin that everything was safe from now on. When she went ahead towards the Tohsaka residence, Rin was still in a daze about the whole thing, but she followed her as if guided by autopilot. She only snapped out of it when the heavy doors closed behind her and her eyes were confronted neither with the creepy darkness of the night nor the straining artificial light of her magic crystal, but instead with the soothingly dim light of an ancient chandelier that illuminated her home.

 _Home._

She took a deep breath and all tension fell off her. This was her home. The safety of her familiar four walls. Their dangerous flight was over.

"Rin?", another familiar voice, the one of her father.

She turned around and found both her parents standing in front of the door to the living room. Tears swelled up in her eyes. At once she realized the risks she had taken and just how close she was to making them cry instead of the other way around.

"I'm sorry", she said. "I'm so sorry."

There were no reproaches, no angry scolding. Rin just fell into the arms of her mother and cried.

 **Kirei**

 _Too easy._

Kirei entered the multi-storey car park, easily slipping through the mediocre bounded field erected here and crouched down in the shadow of a nearby pillar. In his days as an executor he was trained with ways to track down Magi, ways he expected to be easily circumvented by an anomaly like Kiritsugu Emiya and yet he found himself able to track down his familiar's mana connection to this location. It was an easy mistake of regular Magi to trust the defensibility of their workshop while they scout the area through borrowed eyes and therefore to neglect keeping their location hidden. An easy way to do that was to create familiars that can be charged with mana instead of forming a lasting contract, this way if it ended up in enemy hands you can cut the connection to hide your traces. An unusual combatant like Emiya would make sure to make just that, even if it is less cost effective than a direct supply line, so the only logical conclusion Kirei came to was that this was a trap. A trap he sprung all too gladly.

He studied Kiritsugu's fighting style against Kayneth. He knew that Emiya's strength lay in his weapons and therefore in the open field where he could make sure to hit his opponent with his magic disrupting mystic code. A mystic code Kirei had no intention to get as much as grazed with, so his only option was to give Emiya an advantage that would have made him consider to take him down with less expensive means and then to dismantle that advantage fast enough to overwhelm him. This was no open field because Emiya wanted to arrange an ambush. So if Kirei played his cards well, he should be able to use his surroundings to his advantage and force him into close-range combat. In that regard he had also observed that Emiya had the ability to make himself unusually fast, but Kirei was confident that he could adapt to that. Therefore he took the camera he had taken from the familiar out of his pocket and looked directly into it.

 _You are watching me right now, aren't you?_

With a knowing smile, he crushed it in his fist and turned around the corner. Kirei noticed there was a string lowered between two cars, something that gave him a concerning flashback to how Emiya dealt the final blow to Lord El-Melloi. Kirei knew that if he was intent on letting the whole building come down on top of him, there was little Kirei could do about it. But when he focused on the mana trail that lead him to this place, there was little doubt.

 _He is here. Alone, without his Saber._

Since Emiya didn't strike him as the suicidal type, he was ready to take the chance that only the two cars were rigged. Kirei silently crouched back into his hiding spot, summoned four of his Black Keys, two in each fist, and said his prayers:

"Lord, I am your holy servant and agent of your will. Lend me the strength of your angelic enforcers to guide me against all heresy."

The Black Keys glowed softly and then returned back into their resting mode. Immediately afterwards he replaced them with a single fresh one and emerged from behind the pillar to cut the wire with a single throw. The car park was immediately lightened up by a staccato of explosions, not only of the two cars connected to the wires, but by a whole number of them which were obviously connected to cause a chain reaction. Kirei darted behind the next pillar to wait out the explosions.

 _Is this your way to announce an intruder? Or did you do that because-_

A clicking sound appeared nearby as a grenade rolled into his view. He instinctively threw another Black Key to fling it away and darted around the pillar, only for a heavy explosion to make his ears throb. His vision was filled with smoke and fire, but the worst part was that the pillar was severely damaged due to metal bits from the grenade chewing the concrete down to its steel core.

 _Enough force to punch through my protective robe. He must have learned from even the few shots he got at me in the forest. I have to keep moving._

Kirei made an attempt at judging where the grenade was flung from, darted out of his damaged cover, threw three Black Keys aimed at both the location and two possible escape routes and tried to evade the immediate return fire by sliding behind the motor block of one of the undamaged cars. Ignoring the thick smoke and the cackling of the flames to both his sides, Kirei spoke up:

"No more women's skirts to hide beneath, Emiya. I am surprised you dared to come alone!"

He summoned four Black Keys and threw them away, just in time as another grenade rolled under the car he was hiding behind. Kirei made a wild charge behind the next pillar before his cover went up in flames. His ears were still ringing, his lungs ached with every breath and he was still not any closer to his foe, but so far he kept the pace up.

"To be honest, I've been looking forward to this", Kirei rambled on. "You sparked my interest, Emiya. Magus Killer. The ruthless assassin who pursues his goals uncaring of the consequences."

Kirei crouched down and slithered into the gap between two cars. They would prove no good cover, but it was a risk he had to take when trying to get forward. But the moment he emerged from them, a single loud gunshot echoed through the fiery hall. Kirei tried to evade, found that he had no room to do that and instead instinctively raised his left arm in defence.

"Urgh...", a bullet penetrated his Kevlar-reinforced sleeve, entered his forearm, went right through it and shot through his shoulder behind it as well.

Kirei clenched his teeth, trying to fight on against the crippling pain as he looked forward and stared into the eyes of Kiritsugu Emiya. The Magus Killer had come out of his hiding place, a large pistol in hand that was ejecting the cartridge case of the bullet he fired just in this moment. The man looked more haggard than at their last meeting and stared down the wounded priest with eyes of a strange combination of contempt and indifference.

"You talk too much", he declared, about to reload for his certain kill shot.

 **Kariya**

Kariya's consciousness returned to his aching and deteriorating body that was lying in a back-alley of Miyama's foreigner's district. He had watched the battle over in Shinto and just had to laugh about the prospect of Tohsaka's ally's imminent defeat. This was exactly what he had waited for. No surprises, no outside meddling. A clear opportunity for him to use his trump card.

"Come...", he croaked through his raw throat.

Next to him the lumbering giant with his stained yellow surcoat manifested. Not in spirit mode, but in actual (magically formed) flesh and steel. Kariya grimaced as a wave of pain washed all over him.

"You have been aching for this, haven't you? You must be bored to death", Kariya asked with heavy sarcasm. "But you don't have to wait anymore. You have my order to cut loose, to kill everyone who stands in your way.

The giant nodded and grunted, before turning away and staring intently into the night.

"Yes... there is your target. Go... and do what you can do best, you bloody bastard."

With the sound of air shattering the monster disappeared, leaving a wincing Kariya behind. He felt how every single one of its steps drained his energy, how it killed the worms in his body and how the worms in return desperately consumed him to prolong their life. The agony was maddening.

"Come on... I can't pass out from just this...", he ordered one of his winged familiars to his side and tried to take it over, but it was of no use, he couldn't concentrate on the spell. "And here I wanted to witness my victory..."

Kariya closed his eyes and endured it. If nothing else, he should still be alive afterwards.

 _If this is over, I can safely stay back and wait for the last survivor to face my Berserker. And then... and then... urgh..._

 **Kirei**

"You talk too much", the words of Emiya were still ringing in his ears.

Foolish words that were only causing him to smile back in defiance.

"Do I?", he asked back coldly.

Emiya's stern expression faltered, Kirei felt thrilled watching the realization arrive in his opponent's eyes that he had moved to exactly the place where he wanted him. And that giving away his position through idle talk was part of his plan. How else would he have been able to draw him there if he was too cornered to get to him himself?

The Magus Killer took a step away, but it was already too late. He must have seen at least one of them coming as he pulled his gun between himself and the incoming knife. A metallic ringing echoed in the air as it was knocked out of his hand. Emiya managed to evade the second Black key, but the third slammed into his shoulder and the fourth sliced across his calf, making him stumble. This was the opportunity Kirei counted on. He could heal his left arm afterwards, he didn't need it right now, all he needed was his right fist and with this one forward he jumped at Kiritsugu with all his might, all his speed.

 _All I need is one strike, one hit to shatter his heart and it is over._

Emiya looked up, seeing him coming with just as much defiance, but at this point there could be no escape anymore.

 **Rin**

Rin was still standing red-faced in the entrance hall, but now that the first wave of emotions ebbed down, she readied herself to tell her parents what she had witnessed.

"The Ryuudou-temple", she sniffed. "The people are gathered at the Ryuudou-temple."

"The work of Caster, yes", her father said solemnly.

She gasped in bewilderment at that.

"You knew?"

He looked down on her with a pained expression as Arya chimed back in.

"Why do you think I was there?", she asked.

"It was actually Risei, Kirei Kotomine's father, who kept a wary eye on the situation at the temple mountain. He is quite concerned about her showing no interest in the grail and spending her time converting people to her faith", her father added to that.

But this was still not the whole picture, Rin had to make sure that he would understand the true peril of the situation:

"This is not all of it. Her Master... he's the killer everyone in town is pursuing! And if we don't stop them, they will suck the life out of their followers! Out of... Kotone..."

Her father nodded, but still looked over to Arya for further reassurance.

"Is that true?"

"It seems to be the true reason for all these bonfires, due to the mindless Uryuu being incapable of sustaining the red woman", she replied gloomily.

Rin's mother then crouched down with teary eyes.

"Still, this is no reason for you to do something so reckless. I was dying of worry when I arrived and you were nowhere to be found."

"I had every reason to come", Rin protested weakly. "He killed Kensuke! I just had to do something..."

Arya gave her a confident smirk:

"Your friend will get justice, I promise that. You can sleep peacefully tonight knowing that."

Rin nodded, still busy rubbing the tears out of her eyes. It had been a long day and she started to feel tired. Very, very tired.

"I have to thank you, Assassin", she heard her father say. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been able to bring Rin back."

"Don't worry, I would never allow that woman to have her way", Arya replied dubiously.

Rin's father then returned his attention to her, kneeling down with a soothing smile:

"You should better hurry, then. You have seen how unsafe it currently is in Fuyuki and I would never forgive myself if you'd come to harm. You are the future of the Tohsaka name after all. So be brave and be strong! And have trust! Alongside Archer, Kirei and of course Assassin I will do everything in my power to win the grail in a way that you can return to Fuyuki with pride. If you do this, I can concentrate on my battle and your mother will have one less burden."

He then raised himself upright, but the way he did the gesture itself stung Rin into the chest even before she realized what it was that robbed her of all confidence. She saw his expression change, first from relieve to surprise, then from surprise to horror, all over the course of a few seconds.

"Run, now!", far from his usual composed self, he shouted this to both her mother and Rin herself.

"What is-", Rin tried to ask, but was interrupted by the entry doors bursting open.

The golden boy, the one who had saved them earlier, had come crashing through it back first and was now struggling to keep himself on his feet. Only then Rin realized that his armour was dented and he was bleeding profoundly out of a gash in his side.

"What is the meaning of this, Archer?", her father demanded, but never got an answer.

The sword of black and red disappeared out of his hand, getting replaced by an ornate crossbow. Two golden beams of light shot out of it in rapid succession, disappearing through the smashed doors out into the night. Then came a third bang, a bang caused by _something_ entering and crashing into the boy at impossible speed, with both him and the intruder disappearing in a blur. When the dust settled, Rin found both of them at the wall opposing the entrance, with the boy being pinned against it by what appeared to be a giant encased in steel.

"The Mountain...", Arya whispered next to her, just as aghast.

Only then Rin realized that the boy was on eye-level with the attacker due to his legs having been lifted from the ground. He was only kept in place by the greatsword that skewered him in his chest, right through his armour.

"Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!", the boy cursed, again and again and again.

Rin's heart felt like bursting. He had saved them from the shadows just moments ago and now... he was already dead. He might still struggle, but this wound was one a person, even a Servant, couldn't possibly survive. A heavy, ragged breath escaped her. This was death. The death a Magus needed to accept, to walk with. She should not allow herself to be swallowed by it. And yet...

 _Fear cuts deeper than swords._

Her father must have realized the situation as well. Two green gems landed on the floor.

"Mauer des Lichts!", he chanted.

The gems projected a barrier of beaming green light that cut the entire hall in half. It was transparent, so they were still witnessing how the murderous giant pulled his sword back and the dying boy slithered down to the floor in a pool of his own fluids. Meanwhile Rin's mother turned to Arya:

"Take Rin out of here, please!", she begged.

For a moment Arya looked unsure how to act. Something told Rin that she would have liked to make a stand just like she did with the shadows. But instead she complied.

"Right away", she said tersely. "Hold tight!"

Rin felt like a lifeless doll that was roughly picked up from the ground when Arya once again lifted her into the air. She immediately realized that her escape would mean abandoning her parents in a way similar to how her father had screened them off from the fate of the boy, therefore she was just about to protest when she suddenly realized that she was slipping out of the girl assassin's hands.

"No", Arya screamed furiously. "Not nooooow!"

But it was too late. Arya's hands disappeared, no, the entirety of Arya evaporated into nothingness, causing Rin to tumble down to the hard ground. Aching from the new bruises this had caused, Rin pushed herself back up and looked around. The girl, their only remaining protector, had disappeared.

 **Kirei**

A red shockwave. The moment Emiya realized that Kirei was making his final charge at the Magus Killer, a red shockwave broke away from his hand. And long before Kirei would have reached him, he found himself facing a grinning swordsman that materialized in between them, a sword flashing through the night air. There was nothing he could have done to avoid it, except...

 _ **Assassin!**_

He felt his second command spell burning off. Regrettable, but still better than an early death.

"Nooooooooo!"

Kirei didn't quite know what came first, the scream or the rough impact of the super-powered girl that crashed into his side and flung him out of Saber's path with so much force that he felt one of his ribs cracking.

"What have you done?", Assassin asked furiously as she came to a halt in one corner of the burning car park. "We have to help-"

"We have to get out of here first", Kirei interrupted her as he saw Saber turning back towards them. Curiously enough, the knight once again ignored Assassin and went straight for Kirei instead.

Kirei himself pointed towards the entrance from which he came and the girl made a dash for it, having the wounded priest thrown haphazardly over her shoulder.

"Don't let them escape!", the voice of Emiya sounded from behind him.

He thought about any kind of distraction to busy their pursuer, but he might have had the best chance by attacking the already heavily damaged pillar that used to be his cover with an overcharged Black Key, but he had seen this one pass by in a flash when Assassin ran right past it with impossible speed. He wouldn't even have had enough time to apply the necessary sacrament.

 _Urgh..._

The girl made a rough zigzag course while rushing out of the access ramp, barely able to duck under the blade that was clearly meant for Kirei. The latter realized that even though she should have been faster than the heavily armoured knight, she also clearly had trouble picking up speed while burdened with him.

"There is an entertainment district nearby, go for it!", Kirei urged.

Assassin had no chance to take the route over the roofs, any jump would have given the knight the opportunity to cut them down. So she instead made a cut through a number of side alleys, kicking over trash bins and cutting apart a whole fire escape ladder to come down on the charging knight, just to buy a few precious seconds before the two of them went sliding out into a crowded pedestrian precinct, where they collapsed in a mess of arms and legs. Kirei gritted his teeth as his wounds were throbbing with overwhelming pain.

"Hey man, everything alright?", a young voice appeared, obviously offering assistance. "That was a pretty terrible fall."

"It is... alright... thanks...", a groaning Kirei replied, pushing himself upwards.

He was still alive, so that must mean that Saber had hesitated to come for the killing strike. The reason was obvious. Now that they had quite literally crashed into one of the core places of Fuyuki's nightlife, a whole lot of people gathered around the two of them. One person was helping up Arya, while othesr were looking quite worried at Kirei, even though nobody could really tell where exactly they had fallen from.

"It doesn't look alright at all. You are bleeding badly!", the youngster observed.

"Just a scratch...", Kirei tried to be evasive, but he knew very well that it was this attention that saved their lives.

He looked back into the alley from which they came. Silver armour was reflecting moonlight even in this darkness and a pair of green eyes glared at him murderously. But after a while he just disappeared, seemingly giving up on his prey.

"You sure someone shouldn't call an ambulance for the two of you?"

"It is alright, I can still walk", Kirei insisted. "I am already going myself."

Sighing, he made his way away from the place they crashed into, expecting their interest into the odd pair to wane, but not enough for them to not shoot a few confused looks at them. In any case, he had no intention to leave the sight of any bystanders.

"What if he had come after us and killed all these people?", the girl assassin hissed as they walked away, with Kirei softly applying one of his least conspicuous self-healing spells.

"It was a gamble", he replied matter-of-factly. "While Emiya is unscrupulous, Saber showed hesitation when it comes to killing you. I just betted on him showing the same restraint when it comes to the killing of innocents."

Arya's anger was palpable and Kirei expected her to condemn him for his own callous calculation, but instead she showed remarkable restraint or rather an urgency he had rarely seen before.

"We have to get back to the Tohsaka residency, now!", she insisted.

 **Rin**

"The workshop!", Rin's father screamed. "Take Rin and barricade yourself in there.

"What about you?", her mother demanded.

Instead of a reply, he just turned around, clenching his staff with both hands.

"Just hurry!"

"No", Rin begged miserably. "Please don't."

It was madness. He had to run himself. He had to escape with them. There was no point in... dying.

"Erwache, oh gnadenloses Höllenfeuer. Feuer ist mein Leben, Asche mein Vermächtnis", he chanted all the while drawing a magic circle into the air with the afterglow of his staff's ruby.

"Please...", Rin cried, but her mother had already picked her up and rushed into the living room.

The monstrous giant never bothered to strike down her father's magic barrier, it just walked through it, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

"Absolutes Inferno!", Tokiomi Tohsaka shouted.

The beast disappeared in wall of flames that engulfed the whole entrance hall. This was the full power of his staff, she knew. The lifetime of a Magus poured into one priceless jewel, all released at once. She already knew that this was the end of her home, this would incinerate the whole mansion. But it was not capable of incinerating the monstrosity that was demanding their lives. Like a fiery demon it walked out of the hellfire, its armour scorched, its yellow coat burned off and flames flickering out of its helmet.

The last thing Rin saw before the entrance hall disappeared out of her sight was a sword coming down on her father.

Before she had struggled and fought against her mother's grip, now she just slumped down and buried her face in her chest. She could not think, she hadn't even enough strength left to be afraid. Only despair remained. She did not know how they were able to take the steps down into her father's workshop. She only knew that suddenly she found herself sitting on the cold stone floor, watching her mother moving a shelf to the side, revealing a small niche with a small chest that had a complex looking lock hidden behind it. It looked like some kind of buried treasure and the thought bemused Rin in this moment of utter madness.

"Come!", her mother urged her to climb on top of the chest.

Rin obeyed in spite of her shivering body.

 _Fear cuts deeper than swords..._

"Whatever happens, close your eyes and ears and don't make a sound!", her mother advised, she kissed her on the forehand and retreated, already starting to push against the shelf to shove it into its initial position.

"But you-", Rin's throat clenched.

"I love you. Never forget that", and with one final push the shelf hit the wall, sealing off the tiny crevice Rin found herself in.

There was still a narrow gap through which she could see much of what happened outside. She saw her mother stepping back from the shelf and straightening herself in spite of her tears. Rin was tempted to close her eyes as she was advised, to drown out everything of what went on outside, but she couldn't. The moment she closed them, heavy metallic sounding footsteps were ringing in her ears and she was overwhelmed with dread. When she opened her eyes again, her mother was facing the monstrosity that was still out of Rin's view. But here in the echoing stone chamber that was her father's underground workshop, she could hear its ragged breath and feel the terror of its presence.

"You are too late", Aoi Tohsaka declared, staring the Mountain down. "Only I am left here."

More footsteps, each time it touched the ground Rin winced with a cramping heart. She felt cold. She felt helpless. The giant now stepped in front of her mother, his armour still scorched and his sword still dyed in red.

 _Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords._

"Heh", a dim sound escaped its helmet.

Another step. It closed in as her mother was stepping back, even though her eyes were still fixated on him. The giant could have ended it swiftly, just like it did with the boy or her father, but for some sick reason it took its time now. A metal gauntlet darted forward, grabbing the head of Rin's mother and effortlessly lifted her into the air. This was the time Rin pressed her eyes closed again. She knew this would happen, she knew it was inevitable, she only wished that it was already over, that she was awakening from this sick nightmare.

The biting sound of steel ripping through flesh made her nauseous. The scream accompanying it even more.

 _Fear cuts deeper than swords! Fear cuts deeper than swords! Fear cuts deeper..._

Rin pressed her hands on her own mouth, desperately suppressing the shriek that would have escaped it otherwise, clinging to the hope that the beast hadn't heard the muffled noise.

Then... nothing. There was the dim sound of a corpse hitting the ground, but that was nothing she didn't expect. Afterwards however the only sounds she heard were the frantic pounding of her own heart and her ragged breath that seemed far too audible to her liking. When she opened her eyes, she had the faint hope that everything was over, that at least some kind normalcy would return to her life. But instead she nearly winced again as she found herself watching the mad giant once again. He hadn't moved an inch, he was still standing in the middle of the workshop, with his blood-stained sword in hand and with his helmet tilted to look down on what she assumed was her mother.

"Heh", it made that sound again. "Heh... Heh. Heh..."

 _Is he... laughing?_

The helmet moved again. It was raising his head, looking over the workshop with all the forbidden and not so forbidden tomes that had been her father's pride and Rin's playground.

"Heh."

The helmet turned. It turned towards her. And before she could react, she found her eyes meeting his. Her heart was skipping a beat.

 _Fear cuts deeper than swords._

* * *

Author's Note: I guess this is the moment where playing "The Rains of Castamere" is appropriate...


	9. Chapter 9 - The Rains of Castamere

Wow, this chapter should have been finished a month ago, but of course real life struck me hard wherever it could. Sorry for the continued delay, but at least we are approaching the grand finale of this Grail War with ever more large steps! Have fun! Or be terrified! Whatever you think is appropriate...

* * *

Chapter 9 - The Rains of Castamere

 **Kariya**

By now Kariya had grown so used to pain that it was the absence of it that managed to shock him. He had awoken with a dim, lingering feeling that was not pain, but just a lasting exhaustion that actually reminded him that he was still alive and, given the circumstances, recovering somewhat. The burden of Berserker's corporeal form had been lifted from him and with his Servant returning to stand-bye, he could allow himself to raise up and move again.

 _How long was I unconscious?_

He looked up to the sky and saw the stars fading, the horizon even starting to get swallowed up by the orange tint of dawn. Kariya tried to recollect what happened.

 _Berserker... I sent him out!_

He had waited for an opportunity that took the dangerous priest out of the picture. He waited long for it, starting to feel cornered by his own failing body. When the first opportunity arouse, Kariya in his impatience went for it. But the strain proved too much for him. Allowing the monster to walk was enough of a torment to make him feel dizzy and nauseous. Then something happened that caused his mana consumption to rise even more. Whether it was the passing of Tohsaka's boundary field or the commencement of a fight, he could not tell. All he knew was that it was around this time the agony overwhelmed him and he found himself blacking out.

 _Berserker only stops when his target is dead or he is defeated... and since I am still a Master, I have to assume that he did it..._

Kariya took up pace. Ever since his leg was ruined he tried to move as little as necessary in order to not remind himself of that fact, but even though it still dragged behind him, this morning he felt strangely light. His body was still aching and making the wrong movement still resulted in sharp pain, but for once he wasn't hindered all that much by it. He passed one house, then another, then another. Soon enough the Tohsaka residence arrived in front of him. The western mansion stood tall and proud and arrogantly in front of him, though Kariya suspected that this picture of undisturbed silence was a little too perfect to be true. Not even the traces of Rider's charge, even though that one already felt like ages ago, were visible.

 _The bounded field is still active..._

He hesitated. There was a slight chance that some of Tohsaka's defence measures were still active, even though they appeared to be of the kind that needs to be reloaded, at least when he watched them going off against Rider. He knew that it was dangerous to try to enter by himself. Part of him just wanted to leave, to recover somewhere save and await what happened next. And yet...

 _I... I can't just blindly trust that Berserker has taken care of everything. I must... I have to see for myself._

"Come...", he whispered.

Kariya felt the presence of Berserker appearing next to him. He must have lurked around somewhere near, though apparently he had left the mansion quite a while ago.

"Go on then", he ordered, before following in the monster's wake.

A strange tickling feeling overcame him when he entered the bounded field. It was less a reaction of his body and more one of the worms inside it. Even they must have felt uneasy intruding the enemy fortress, but their stirring was still subdued enough for the pain to be bearable.

 _Oh..._

There were no murderous spells flung into his direction, instead he found himself confronted with a mansion that surely had seen better times. The entrance and the floor above it were pretty much gone, only scorched debris and a gaping black hole remained. The way the upper floors were covered with soot it looked like a large fire had broken out, a fire that by all means should have razed the whole building to the ground, since there was no way for any fire department to be alarmed thanks to the bounded field. And yet here it stood, badly damaged, but still defying all odds.

 _I wonder whether there are any spells woven into the walls to reduce damage. Given Tohsaka's sick experiments, I wouldn't put it past him._

Shrugging his strange observations off, Kariya followed the path through the mansion's garden with unsteady steps. It was an odd experience. This house always seemed like doom to him. Of course he was loosely acquainted with Tokiomi, given the close ties of the Matou and Tohsaka houses, but even then the man always seemed to him like your usual cold-blooded Magus. He was only absorbed by the thought of the Grail and his own reputation, barely acknowledging Kariya's existence in the few talks between him and Zouken he was present at. And yet there was a time where Kariya tried to ignore these signals of his lack of humanity. He did put hope onto him when Aoi married him, the Aoi he wanted to save from Zouken's grasp. In those precious years he imagined this house, even though its doors were always closed to him, to be some kind of refuge, to give some normalcy to the woman he cared for. And yet all Tokiomi did was bringing misery to her and her daughters, utterly crushing any thought Kariya had that he would be better than that vampire who raised him.

Kariya entered the ruined halls of the Tohsaka mansion, carefully stepping through the remnants of the ruined floor. He didn't need to search for long. The corpse of Tokiomi Tohsaka lay close to where the burned part started. He was on his back, with his still open eyes staring dimly at the ceiling. With his fancy dress and well-kept hair and beard he looked like he'd rather sit in a western tea party or at a dinner-dance than in this pitiful position. In fact, if not for the pool of blood beneath him and the horrifying cut, which started from his right shoulder and went all the way down to his left hip, it was hard to believe that this man was dead. Kariya sighed.

"Look at you", he said with calm voice, angry and yet somewhat subdued, talking more to himself than to the corpse. "Do you honestly think I wanted it to end like this? You left me no choice! All I wanted was for Aoi and Sakura to stop crying and here we are. Even in death you will cause them nothing but sorrow..."

 _With whom am I even talking to?_

He felt uncomfortably aware of Berserker's presence at his side. The giant was watching him. Waiting for more orders or just observing his reaction to his foe's demise? Kariya couldn't tell and frankly didn't care. It just made him uneasy.

 _What am I even trying to prove? I am seeing what I have expected to see. It's not like I... I didn't wonder how things would look like if he were gone... it's..._

Kariya shook his head. These were dangerous thoughts. All he did was participating in this Grail War. A Grail War Tokiomi joined knowing fully well that it could very easily lead to his death. Kariya proved stronger, even if only because Berserker proved stronger. This was victory. His victory. So why felt all of this somehow wrong? He looked towards where Berserker was hovering.

"I ordered you to finish him and you did... maybe I am just surprised how easy it went. I can't expect every fight to work out like this, or to survive if I keep seeking a fight in the first place. But you've proven your mettle, you-", Kariya stopped, something had caught his eye, something that caused him to frown.

There were large bloody footprints leading into the next room. The sheer size of them seemed to fit Berserker's heavy boots. He must have stepped into the pool of blood when it was still fresh, which seemed not that unlikely given how large it was, but it struck him as odd for why a mindless brute like him would go exploring the mansion after getting rid of Tokiomi and his Archer.

Something was wrong here. A faint voice whispered into his ear that he had seen what he came for, that there was no reason linger, that he should just escape and focus on the Grail War with all of his concentration. And yet... Kariya ignored that voice and found himself drawn to the door. He passed the corpse of Tohsaka and stepped closer, dragging his dead leg through the ashes. Peeking through the door, he saw a near untouched room that looked like a fancy parlour or a living room. The entire furniture looked antique, just the kind of lavish luxury he expected from a man like Tohsaka. But all he cared for were the bloody footsteps, each one somewhat fainter than the one before. They lead to another door, one that was ripped out of its ankles, leaving the view open to a stone staircase into the ground, illuminated by a sickly bluish light of magic origin. The walls seemed roughly hewn and out of place, but given the layout of the Matou residence as a reference Kariya had a good idea where it was leading to.

 _His workshop..._

Kariya gulped. The voice was still there. Something dreadful must have been below, something that would swallow him whole. The voice whispered that if he went down there, there would never be a turning back. That the path of Kariya Matou would end down there. And yet he couldn't avert his gaze, he couldn't just flee and pretend to not have seen anything. Something was down there, something he just had to see...

Before he knew it, he was already descending the winding, narrow steps. Walking in a straight line was hard enough, but this was just absurd. Without a second leg to stand firmly, Kariya was forced to lean against the walls in order to keep his balance, in order to find the next step without falling. It took him minutes, minutes in which his mind was racing about what he was about to find, minutes in which the foul stench of blood came to his nose and startled him.

 _The workshop of a magus, huh?_

Berserker thoroughly honoured his name, his godforsaken nature. The Tohsaka workshop was a single long room with a low, semicircular ceiling. It seemed like the tables with magic instruments had been in the centre and numerous bookshelves used to be lined up at the walls, but Berserker must have made short work of all of it. The shelves were splintered, the books ripped and the instruments smashed, leaving the floor covered with shards and loose pages, torn scrolls and the odd jewel here or there.

 _What were you thinking?_

The beast was still standing at his side, towering above the chaos as if it didn't concern him. Kariya's wobbly steps continued, inch for inch he went further into the workshop. Manoeuvring around the shelves that had been flung into the middle of the room was no easy task, especially with all these obstacles and his ruined leg hindering him at every opportunity. He only stopped when he approached a figure that seemed out of place. Half covered in torn pages it was lying in front of one of the shelves that been mauled by Berserker. It seemed like a statue of white marble, an angel in peaceful slumber with a single red rose grasped in the hands holding her chest. But that rose was only painted on, with a dirty crimson that was about to turn into rust. Kariya shivered, a burning fire was bursting his heart aflame, threatening to consume the last bit of reason left to him as he crouched down next to the sleeping figure.

 _It can't be! It can't be! It can't... You are not supposed to be here! I... I saw you leaving, you and Rin... you went hiding somewhere else, you weren't... you should not... not... here... not..._

It was Aoi. Or so it seemed. He carefully touched her face, it was cold and hard, more like a doll than a living human. She seemed like fragile porcelain to him.

 _A trick! Yes! Yes, that's what it is! It has to be... some kind of foul sorcery, to mess with me. It can't... it can't be..._

He knew he was fooling himself. He was clinging to the only shred of hope remaining to him, the one sliver that could put this harsh reality into question. But while that reality slowly crept into his mind, the indifferent gaze of the monster next to him started to get to him. Kariya met this gaze with his own stare, one filled with utter hatred.

"What have you done?", he demanded, his voice overturning itself. "What have you done?"

There came no answer. All the monster did was staring him down, silent and damning. Rage overcame Kariya. He couldn't stand this, he couldn't stand getting accused by a mindless brute. All he wished was for him to just disappear and die. To suffer the same fate he brought upon Aoi. Kariya threw his arm at the beast's direction, letting his fury speak:

" **Go away!** "

A red shockwave was let loose, banishing the towering demon the moment it hit him. He had disappeared. Kariya could not say where to, but he did not care anyway. He was only glad that the damning gaze had ended, leaving him to sob softly at the side of the woman he wanted to save.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I... I didn't..."

The voice that tried to warn him was right. This was the end for Kariya Matou. There was no reason for him to continue this battle. He threw it all away, just because he wanted the war to end more swiftly.

"This is my fault, I... I brought this upon you... I didn't... I..."

He wanted to cradle her body in his arms, in the vain hope that his embrace would somehow wake her up, but Kariya also knew that he didn't deserve to even touch her. So he was just kneeling there amidst the carnage, overwhelmed by helplessness. Minutes passed. Slowly, he came to accept that she would never return to him. The smell of blood was suffocating him. And so was the picture of senseless destruction, the malice with which this workshop was hacked to pieces only to kill one person. Even though it did struck him as odd, given how Aoi's wound wasn't nearly as gruesome as the one of Tokiomi. Only then he realized the bloodstains elsewhere. Especially right in front of him, where a large shelf had been split in two, opening the view onto a small crevice in which a smashed chest was hidden, a chest where something looking like a withered fossil had been inside. At the edge above this crevice a large stain of blood, hair and flesh had painted the stone red. A dreadful thought crossed his mind. A thought that caused him to look over his devastaed surroundings once more.

 _Please... please don't... please..._

His heart plummeted when he saw something sparkling red behind one half of the torn shelf to the left of him. He nearly mistook it for more blood, but it turned out to be a blood red pendant with a silver chain. This silver chain however was clasped by a small white hand...

 _Please, no more! No more..._

Without heed for his surroundings, Kariya crawled through the debris towards it. And with every inch he moved closer, the more his fear turned reality. A bloodstained skirt, a soaked red jacket. But the worst of all was the face. At first his view was blocked by a part of the shattered shelf, so he moved closer and closer, even if it meant to prolong this mad nightmare. But even when kneeling right in front of the girl's corpse, he was unable to see it, unable to recognize it. Because there was no face. Not anymore. It was a ruin of torn flesh and shattered bone. Kariya Matou collapsed with a wailing scream as his last bits of reason were swept away by the madness he found himself in.

"Uaaargh...Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!"

 **Kirei**

A long silence set in after the priest ended his recounting of what he and Assassin had found at the Tohsaka residence. Kirei was listening to the idle noise of the phone, waiting for his father's reaction. It seemed like the old man didn't take the news well.

"Truly regrettable", was Risei Kotomine's final verdict, though he said so with a heavy voice. "Tokiomi was a good friend and a man of high aspirations. It is doubly troubling that his line ends this way... and he was your mentor, Kirei. I don't want to imagine how you feel after finding him like this."

 _Well, how do I feel?_

Kirei was grimacing on the other end of the line. Due to Assassin's insistence, the two of them had hurried to the Tohsaka residence, but they were on the wrong side of town to reach it in time. When they finally arrived, Berserker had already disappeared and all they found were mangled corpses. Kirei still vividly remembered how he found Tokiomi upon entering, how he looked down into the man's lifeless blue eyes. He did indeed feel something. Regret. But not the regret about a life cut too short. More the regret of an opportunity he had missed. What kind of opportunity he dreaded to think too much about.

"His worth as an instructor was without a doubt", Kirei finally admitted. "He will be missed."

Risei gave a weary sigh.

"Leave the necessary arrangements to me. I will take care of the authorities' perception of this... unfortunate accident... and arrange for the Magic Association to take his Crest. Maybe they can find some branch of the Tohsaka family that can claim it, but even if not... well I suppose the Church won't be mourning about one Magus less around. Now to you, son... Since your alliance has come to an end, I have to ask you how you want to proceed."

Kirei looked over to the chair Arya sat in. It was her who had been affected the most by what they had found. It was not like she was overcome by grief, in fact she acknowledged it in a way that made Kirei assume that she was used to seeing death, even messy ones like these. It was rather that she proved unable to suppress the deep anger within her. Arya had been fuming and cursing furiously during their entire return trip, swearing bloody vengeance with every breath. Even now when she decided to listen to Kirei's conversation with his father, she was doing so sitting there with downcast eyes and clenched fists, barely able to restrain herself. Kirei acknowledged that even if he were to give up now, the girl would drag him back into battle no matter what.

"I may not share Tohsaka's aspirations, but it seems I have no choice but to finish what is started... even if only to ensure the Grail to get an owner who would not misuse it."

"Words wisely chosen, my son", the weary priest on the other end replied. "I just hope you know what you are doing."

A frown formed on Kirei's brow. He certainly didn't mishear these words of doubt from his father. He was clearly worrying about this lonesome path Kirei was taking, maybe even fearing that it would lead to self-destruction.

 _He always had that strange assumption that I lost my way due to Claudia's death..._

"Be assured that I will not take any unnecessary risks. I will act in a way not to disappoint your faith or Tohsaka's..."

An acknowledging grunt came from the other end.

"I see, I see... Well then, I wish you good luck. Don't hesitate to call me if you need some counsel, Kirei. Till then, please take care of yourself."

"Goodbye."

Kirei put the receiver down, returning his attention towards Assassin now that they were alone once again. The girl herself raised her head and met his look with a hateful stare of her own.

"I told you it was a mistake", she stated, her fists still clenched.

"To allow Matou to live?", it was barely a question, he already knew the answer.

"To allow the Mountain to live...", Arya corrected. "This is what I meant, this is what he does... even to... even to..."

Her anger turned into bitter regret. Something Kirei observed with a strange fascination of his own.

"I promised her...", Arya went on. "I promised her to protect her father, to make him live through this war. But in the end I couldn't even protect her..."

Kirei knew that this was the moment he was supposed to console the grief-stricken girl. He knew he should seat himself next to her, maybe even put a hand on her shoulder while speaking hollow words of encouragement. But he was unable to do so. He remained a spectator, like he always was, watching how the girl dealt with her emotions on her own. And he regretted deeply that he saw himself unable to reach out to her like he was supposed to do.

Assassin took a deep breath, managing to somewhat calm herself down. At least enough to focus back on the future instead of the past.

"So is this true what you have told your father? You continue the fight, even if only to stop the Mountain?"

"I said so, didn't I?", he asked back, slightly confused about her doubts.

The girl frowned, leaning forward with hostility in her eyes.

"You lie!"

"What makes you think that?", Kirei gave a dark smile.

"I have seen your face when you saw your mentor and his family. You didn't care for either of their deaths! Actually, I'm starting to think you don't care about anything at all!"

Kirei grimaced, uncomfortable about the implications.

 _She is more perceptive than I thought..._

"My... my feelings about their deaths are unrelated to the action that needs to be taken", he tried to set up a meagre defence. "I am certainly not driven by vengeance, if that is what you expect me to be."

Arya gave a sneer.

"Don't worry, I never assumed as much. And it's not like I am only out for revenge, either... I just know the Mountain better than you do. I have seen what he and his band of criminals did and how nobody ever saw justice for it."

"So justice it is when you go out and slit Matou's throat, huh?", he gave a weak chuckle. "Well, it is not like I have any intention to stop you."

"Good", she acknowledged. "But you still haven't answered my question: What is your intention then? Why do you fight when you have such a hard time caring for anything?"

Kirei averted his eyes, staring at the ceiling instead. It was interesting how the tables had turned. He used to be the one poking her with questions about her past and her motivations after all...

 _Why do I, huh?_

He had to admit that she was right. It made no sense for him to take action when the loss of Tokiomi felt like it didn't concern him. The man was dead. Killing the murderer wouldn't change that. There was no gain at all, at least to him.

"Maybe because I think it would be the right thing", Kirei mused. "Like you said, it would be justice."

"You still make it sound like it stands to question", Arya replied with a deep frown, at least before breaking the tension with a sigh. "I don't understand you and I am not sure I want to understand you. But as long as you won't stop me from doing the right thing, I have no problem with assisting you in whatever you are fighting for."

She went for the door, but hesitated while reaching for the knob, turning back to Kirei mid-movement.

"You know... I found you odd from the moment you've summoned me. This feeling never got away the more I learn about you. And yet... for all your weirdness, for all your weird way of phrasing things... I have never seen a man grown before who is still this clueless about what he actually expects of life. There is something unsettling about you! But there is also something genuine in there, something that knows what justice is and that sometimes you need to go out of your way to correct the wrongs in the world. I just hope that the next time we talk like this you have become aware of this part of yours."

And with this she left. Kirei remained behind in the half-darkness of the hotel room, alone except for his own thoughts. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, his brow forming a deep frown.

 _Perceptive, but still wrong..._

He agreed that there was something in him that knew justice, that knew... morals... But every live moment he feared that this was no part of him, not of the true him for that matter. Just a hollow and meaningless addition that was made afterwards, long after the sinful him was created.

 _Lord, what is it what you want me to do?_

There was no reply. Something he took as a reassurance that he was supposed to find out himself. Whatever that meant anyway...

 **Jaime**

With the shutters closed and the room essentially outfitted like a small fortress it was hard to believe that the sun had already risen outside. Jaime Lannister stood there in the half-darkness, staring at a closed window, watching his shadow dance while a sickly blue glow illuminated the room from behind him. Turning around he saw how Irisviel completed her healing magic applied to Kiritsugu's leg before slumping down on her bed.

"Iri?", for a moment a worried expression appeared on her husband's face. "I thought you have recovered, what's wrong?"

She gave back a forced smile.

"Nothing is wrong. You came back to me when I already feared the worst...", she answered, cocking her head as she looked at his face.

"Doubt? Something has happened elsewhere..."

"A Servant died... I felt it", the way she announced it, a sliver of sadness tinged her words. "There is no turning back now."

Kiritsugu nodded in understanding, at least until he shot Jaime a dark look.

"It should have been two enemies down then...", he sneered.

Jaime could not help but laugh:

"I told you he jumped into a crowd of people! You don't expect me to barge in and kill every single witness afterwards, do you?"

Kiritsugu looked down, apparently thinking about that option, though that was hard to tell given his usual expression of moody disconnect. A bout of anger flared up in the knight's chest.

"You can't be serious!"

"No...", the Magus Killer then conceded in a low voice. "For once you were in the right. The chance was too high to cause unwanted attention, especially in regards to the Church. That might have complicated things later on."

Jaime couldn't help but stare back in disbelief. The murder of innocents meant nothing to him, only whether it would have caused a backlash. He never took his Master for a moral man, but now he was just being unnecessarily callous. The only reason Jaime's retort was stuck on his tongue was that he was well aware of the hypocrisy if he acted on it. Instead he just watched Kiritsugu stand up, fetch his coat and go for the door.

"Wait, where are you going?", Jaime asked.

Kiritsugu stopped mid-movement.

"The situation has changed, but there is no way Iri can tell who the one killed is. I have to find out immediately and gather what kind of advantage we gain from it."

"Has your skewered leg not tought you how dangerous it is to head out alone?", Jaime shot back. "Let me accompany you at least."

The Magus Killer gave a dry laugh.

"Battle advice from a knight who can't go for the kill? No need to humor me. I work better alone anyway. Just keep Iri safe."

And just like that he left. Jaime couldn't believe it, he sat down on the bed opposing Irisviel's and tried to calm himself down.

"In the name of the Seven, I am a knight of the Kingsguard...", he muttered.

"I can understand how you must feel, Ser Jaime", Iri said with a sad smile. "Kiritsugu can be... inconsiderate when he thinks that the stakes make it necessary. If you care for my opinion, I find it not a flaw that you show restraint when asked to kill children."

"You are too kind, your Grace, but... while it may be right that such an act wouldn't be very chivalric no matter how you look at it, it is not that this stopped me before... I am not the white knight you think me to be. I am the Kingslayer, remember? That is no honorific..."

 _The things you do for love..._

He watched Irisviel's reaction, but saw only confusion.

"I don't know what sins you committed in your past life, but whoever this Kingslayer is you speak of, it is not the Jaime Lannister I got to know over the past few weeks."

"You only say this because I kept bugging you about this whole sacrifice nonsense...no... I... I actually don't know why I can't harm Arya. I don't think it is because her mother made me take an oath to get her home... maybe it is just because I believe I have done her enough harm already even without driving the sword of her father through her."

"The sword of her father?", Irisviel repeated the words, swallowing their meaning.

Jaime sighed and averted her eyes. At this point he could as well just tell her the whole story.

"Trust me, I've hurt her and her family more than even she knows: I crippled her younger brother, intending to kill him to protect the spawns of my shame. I attacked and wounded her father in a blind fit of rage. I was sieging her uncle and fighting her elder brother while her father was killed, her sister kept hostage and she herself was raped and killed somewhere in the gutters of King's Landing. And now here I am, holding half of her father's sword that my father kept as a trophy and see myself forced to fight her with it! This is why... why I can't bloody do it..."

He looked up again and while he had been staring at the ground before, he realized that these imploring red eyes never left him out of focus. He found himself suddenly reminded of how unusual Irisviel was in pretty much every aspect.

"I can accept that this is what you did...", she replied defiantly. "But something happened afterwards, didn't it?"

Jaime grimaced. He couldn't keep a secret from her. And before he could deny it, the face of a woman flashed up before his eyes. A woman with pure blue eyes, clear and innocent and yet so very strong. Despite himself he felt a smile creeping up on his face.

"A true knight happened", he admitted. "A knight who shamed me just by existing. By proving again and again how much I strayed from my path..."

"... and this is why you 'kept bugging me about that whole sacrifice nonsense'", Iri threw this back at him with a sly smile.

He gave an embarrassed grunt.

"In part... but mostly because it truly _is_ nonsense!"

Irisviel sighed and leaned back on the bed. Or rather slumping down on it as Jaime soon realized. And not just out of exasperation.

"Everything alright with you?", he asked, slightly worried.

"No need to trouble yourself, Ser Jaime", she replied absentmindedly. "I'm just... very tired..."

Her pained expression made the lie obvious. At once Jaime found himself overcome by a bad premonition. He jumped up, but did not dare approach her as she lay in front of him.

"Damn it, I'm babbling here about my sorry past while you've become ever more pale by the minute. And for you that's saying something!"

"I just need some rest... nothing more... it is just... the Heroic Spirit that died this night... I can... keep on after just a little bit of sleep... it is just one, after all... it shouldn't manifest until far later..."

"What do you mean?", he was just standing there, utterly baffled at her words.

"The Grail... you already know what I am about to become... and... as I said to Kiritsugu before... no matter how much you complain...", her lips formed a weak smile. "... there is no turning back now..."

 **Sola-ui**

Sola-ui was still listening to her own ragged breathing as she snuck closer to him. Resting on his chest she could feel the shape of his muscles, the heat he was emitting and the slow heaving of his body with every breath. When his body was in so much synchronicity to her own, it was hard to believe that it was just an artificial construct made of magical energy. She had to chuckle at that train of thought, he felt real enough just a moment ago. He felt real enough the night before as well... She looked up and drank up the sight of his features. Though she was a little disappointed that he was not returning her gaze, she still wondered why her Prince was looking so thoughtful for a change.

"Why the serious face? Anything worrying you?"

Oberyn seemed startled for a moment, as if interrupted in his thoughts. He only then seemed to take note of her.

"Anything wrong with the contract?", she continued to ask.

He broke out a smile, though for a change it was an unsteady one.

"The contract?", he blinked in confusion.

Sola-ui punched his chest. Not hard, not that it would have hurt in any case, but the message was clear.

"Don't play games with me, I'm talking about the contract we have sealed!"

"Ah... of course", he admitted, chuckling. "To be frank, I wasn't quite sure all of its steps were entirely necessary. Not that I am complaining."

"Tch... for what kind of woman do you think me, trying to trick you into bed with a flimsy sounding excuse like this?"

"I take you for a woman who knows exactly what she wants and doesn't hesitate to take it", he laughed. "So you were serious? Ha! I never gave their religion much heed, but the Summer Islanders seem to have been on to something after all!"

She had that slightly irritating feeling that he was making fun of her, but his laughter and smile were payment enough for that slight dent to her ego.

"I was already supplying you with magical energy and that complicated things when making a contract with me", Sola-ui explained matter-of-factly. "It's not that it came with the Command Spell... so... going for the more intimate way to establish it seemed like a sensible choice to ensure success... To be sure, I would have tried another way if you would not have enjoyed it."

"Do not worry, my dear. I wouldn't have agreed if I hadn't found pleasure in your company either."

"Then tell me, Prince Oberyn: Your distrust in my honesty aside, what is it that troubles you?"

His expression grew serious again. Sola-ui felt the cold of the chilly hotel room getting to her as the warmth of his love and the ache of her pleasure subsided. Instinctively she pulled the blanket closer up to her chest.

"I don't mean to spoil the atmosphere...", Oberyn apologized. "I was just thinking how we should proceed from now on... and most importantly, for what purpose. I suppose your aim is not to reach the Root like it was Kayneth's?"

Sola-ui found her teeth clenching. She wanted to forget her bothersome fiancee, just hearing his name was enough to sour her mood.

"You are right and wrong", she answered slowly. "You are wrong in that Kayneth cared for the Root. If there was one thing in life he truly cared about, then it was his precious reputation and for that the Root was just a means to an end. But you are right when you say that I am not like him."

His black eyes were piercing hers like the viper he got his nickname from, a slight frown throwing a shadow upon his lined features.

"Then what is your goal, Sola-ui?"

 _You?_

She had to chuckle at her childish thought. If she had said that, he would have truly taken her for a fool. But when forced to think about the future, she had to admit that the picture in her head remained blank. Right now she lived only for the moment... the nights and mornings and the mindful conversations in between. They rarely if ever left this low-class motel at the edge of town they had sought refuge in after the destruction of the Hyatt. What the place lacked in comfort they had made up in company so far, but of course the Grail War was still raging outside and the one responsible for the death of her useless fiancee was still somewhere out there, waiting for them to reappear. Staying here meant staying dead in this one's eyes. It meant safety. It meant one more day of just the two of them.

"I don't know", she admitted. "I guess I was just trying not to think about it."

Oberyn nodded in understanding, though his grave expression made Sola-ui feel incredibly foolish.

"What I do know, however, is that I want to fight alongside you. For you... for whatever it is you have need for the Grai", she thought for a moment, studying his unsurprised reaction. "Kayneth never asked you what it is, didn't he?"

"He seemed not to care, no...", Oberyn replied evasively, pondering on the question himself.

"Then I'll have to ask you myself: What is my prince fighting for?"

He laughed upon hearing this, but there was no joy in it. He seemed sad and regretful as his eyes trailed away from her.

"I fight for vengeance, justice... but most of all... for House Martell..."

"Your family?"

She couldn't say why the idea struck her as so odd, but for some reason it did. Maybe because she had come to imagine him as some kind of lone wolf wandering foreign worlds. She braced herself to revise that picture.

"Of course. Why the surprised face? Don't you believe that I love my family? My wise and bookish elder brother, my fierce young niece who will rule just as greatly after him, my nephew who was so proud when he earned his knighthood, his younger brother, a bright and unrelentingly curious child last time I saw him and then of course my own daughters, every single one as spirited as our house motto suggests. But most of all, there was Elia..."

"Elia?"

His lips formed a sad smile.

"You must think me an obsessed fool... that after all these years I am still haunted by the death of my sister...", he sighed and continued when Sola-ui showed no intention to speak up. "We were inseperable as children. She may have always had a weak constitution, but in her veins flew the same blood of our mother that flows in me. She was sweet and gentle and yet quick-witted and sharp when it came to it. She deserved to be queen. She definitely deserved not to be discarded by that fool Rhaegar... and definitely not to be used as a hostage by the mad king to ensure House Martell's loyalty... and most of all, she did not deserve to die by the orders of a spiteful old lion."

 _Lion?_

"Are you talking about Saber?"

"About his father... when Tywin Lannister sacked the capital and sent his minions to kill my sister and her children, his son killed the king and let it happen inspite of his vow to protect the royal family. He is just as guilty as the rest of them..."

"So you wish for the end of House Lannister?" Sola-ui asked.

He seemed taken aback by that notion, shifting uncomfortably on his pillow.

"No... though that would satisfy me very much, I do not intend to waste my wish on petty revenge... Believe me, Sola-ui, I only wish for a world... in which my sister lives..."

It seemed wrong to spoil his honesty by thoughtless words of her own. Therefore Sola-ui decided to remain silent, thinking about the bonds between Oberyn at his sister. Bonds strong enough that he overcame death itself for a gamble to change fate. Unwittingly, Sola-ui's thoughts went to her own brother. An image of his slick smile flashed up before her eyes and she wondered whether he would ever do the same for her. The immediate answer coming to her mind was disheartening. Even though Oberyn was from a medieval society, apparently the bonds between them were far greater than between those who were born with the curse of magic in this oh so modern world.

"Even after all that happened to her", she finally said. "I cannot help but envy her. To have you. To have all of her family behind her, no matter how the circumstances."

Oberyn pondered at her words and his smile became a little softer.

"Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. Whatever happens, the sun of Dorne will rise again, as bright as it is deadly...", he cocked his head. "But enough about me. I will fight and win for this wish regardless of what may happen. But the same goes not for you... you have gone as far as taking up the burden of being a Master to yourself and even though the loss of your fiancé seems to affect you little, it still means that you are free to return to your home country."

"Is it so easy, though?", Sola-ui asked back, stroking his cheek with a bitter smile. "As you say, I got myself rid of Kayneth... but what will await me back in London? Is it not just another self-centered Magus who thinks he owns the world my parents will marry me off to? I am afraid that in this world of Magi my only worth as a second child lies in those precious magic circuits a child of mine would inherit..."

He returned her gaze with a worried expression of his own as he was taking her hand. Like always they were warm and gentle, but for once there was a firmness he hadn't shown before.

"Sola-ui, dear, I am afraid I am unable to understand your resignation in this matter. You make it sound like you are a highborn maiden who doesn't have the privilege of being born in Dorne and yet this world of yours is in many respects even greater than my home ever was when it comes to opportunities. If you don't want to return, you have the freedom to do so! I may not be able to understand the circumstances under which you grew up, but I see the woman who is right in front of me! A woman who has become my Master out of her own volition and would certainly never allow herself to be bound to imagined shackles!"

Sola-ui winced under the weight of his words.

"You have a very flattering picture of me...", she averted his gaze. "Though it is not a picture without a certain attraction..."

"Surely it must have a certain attraction, why else have I become so enthralled with my new Master", he squeezed her hand softly and Sola-ui's heart fluttered at his words, even though his face turned immediately serious again. "But make no mistake, my dear! I am a child of my world, a son of Loreza Martell and a brother to Elia Martell. I will fulfill my wish for Elia's happiness and then I will return to that grave of mine. And when I do, you have to return to this world of yours, to find your place in it, to find a future that is yet unwritten."

She nodded, but found not the strength to meet his eyes. Sola-ui knew that he was right, but she also knew that she desired for this future to include her foreign prince. She wanted him. That was the only truth that mattered in this moment. And she knew that this Grail surely must have been powerful enough to grant this wish, whether Oberyn desired it or not.

 _Can't the Grail make both true? To give him his sister and me him? Who is the foolish one here? After all, what kind of man throws away the chance of a new life in a new world only to return to cold and unchanging death?_

These were dark thoughts however, thoughts Sola-ui knew she should be ashamed of. He spoke of her freedom and yet her first instinct was to put shackles around him. And yet she was not ashamed of them. For she knew that he would be thankful afterwards, when both of them were able to achieve happiness in a new future. Sola-ui was only driven out of her thoughts when Oberyn stirred and began to disentangle himself from their embrace.

"So you are going out now?", she asked, dreading the coming parting.

"Indeed", he replied as he sat up, his naked figure contrasting against the dark of the room. "By now there must have been many battles the Red Viper has missed. And I wouldn't want them to think that a son of Dorne is so craven as to pretend to be dead. For better or worse, it is still my duty to avenge the fallen Lord Kayneth."

She punched him again, this time with a vicious smile.

"Don't be silly!"

He returned the smile and gave a small chuckle as a he stood up:

"I am just saying that I am a knight after all. And who am I to miss an opportunity to rub this under the nose of the Kingslayer?"

 **The local Girl**

The sun stood high and she sighed as a look onto her watch confirmed her suspicions. It was already way past noon. It was the time of the day when the local shopping district in Miyama came more and more alive, but it was still by far not bustling with customers. Therefore a girl of middle-school age strolling through the streets at this hour was indeed drawing some attention, even though she wasn't skipping school in the strictest sense of the word. She had something to do out here and something had drawn her to this district after she failed to find it anywhere else.

Her fists clenched. She was close to finding it, but couldn't pinpoint where exactly it was. She remained standing in front of a small flower shop, looking around with a slight sense of dread. Something was wrong. The people around her went down their paths without anything looking amiss, she saw an old couple talking and smiling, a young man hauling grocery bags, a woman chatting on her phone, only the lonesome girl knew that something horrible was about to happen.

 _Am I found out?_

She felt the hair on her neck rising as she whirled around. There was only a group of young men in business suits approaching and they were too focused on their conversation to take note of her.

"Is there a Renaissance Fair in town?", one asked the other.

"Not that I know of, maybe it's in Shinto?", the second one replied.

"Maybe he just wants to brag with his costume. Though it really puts any cosplayer to shame", the third one chimed in.

"I'm certain it's not just a cosplay. Did you see how real it looked?"

"Real or not, nobody is this huge. That one must be cosplaying some fictional character."

"Yeah, but not one I know of. Did you recognize the heraldry?"

The girl watched them pass with both blank eyes and blank mind.

 _No... no, no, no!_

They had entered the street from the crossing behind her, so the girl made a short dash for it, trying not to run over some of the confused passer-bys. When approaching the crossing, chatter about the mysterious cosplayer became more and more prevalent. Some were rising their eyebrows and shook their heads, others laughed it off. Not so the girl. She turned around the corner, scanning the unfamiliar street in front of her with desperate eyes. She saw him immediately. A restless giant prowling the sidewalk in plain view of everyone. Even uneducated eyes must have been realizing that he could not have been an ordinary human being. Encased in layers upon layers of heavy steel, outfitted so thick that any other man would hardly be able to move with it, this one was towering a good head above every other person in the street. The only visible part not made of steel was the yellow surcout with their black heraldry...

Her heart skipped several beats as she was processing what that meant. He seemed to look for something, or maybe even someone as he was restlessly marching from shop to shop, gathering quite a number of startled onlookers. Luckily, most people kept their distance to him. His aura of aimless hostility was too obvious for that. His right hand was twitching over his sheated sword after all. Before she could act upon her instincts, the girl realized that she had become surrounded by several other gawking spectators who had followed her from the crossing, some were murmuring behind her.

"What's up with this guy?"

"Look at it! This armor is the real thing! How cool is that?"

"Should I go take a photo with him."

The girl gulped, whirling around.

"Don't get any closer than this! Better just run away or something!", she advised.

Half a dozen pairs of startled eyes looked back at her.

"What are you saying?", the girl in question asked back.

"I am saying he is dangerous and everybody should get away from this district", the girl insisted with growing impatience.

But the looks remained the same. Some were confused by her visible fear, others just irritated for why she felt the need to warn them so cryptically. However everyone had trouble believing what she was saying.

"Aren't you a little old to be afraid of an Anime character?", another young man interjected with a mocking voice, causing some snickering in the crowd.

The girl cocked her head, grasping for the meaning of the joke until it dawned upon her that he regarded him as a villain from some story. While arguably fitting from his point of view, the girl saw herself loosing the crowd.

"That's not what I mean!", she doubled down tersely. "I am speaking of the man beneath the armor, the real monster that is walking down this street!"

The snickering died down and some looked to her as if astonished, but before any questions regarding her connection to the knight could be asked, the angry bellowing of a horn interrupted the conversation. Following the widening eyes of the crowd, the girl whirled around once again and saw that the giant had stepped onto the road, apparently just as one of the few cars in this small district was trying to get through. The honking went on as the lumbering giant just stared down the car as he was standing in the middle of the street. The eyes of the girl wandered to the other side where she recognized a liqeur shop and for some reason the thought that this must have been his destination crossed her mind.

"Are you blind? Just move your costumed ass and get out of the way!", the driver, a young man whose radio music came blaring out of his car, was leaning out of the opened window, yelling at the knight.

The girl's heart was racing as she was overcome by panic.

 _What are you doing, you idiot?_

"Just run...", she said slowly to the crowd before dashing off, towards the monster.

Long before she came even close to the scene, the dimmed metallic grumble of the knight was audible.

"Noisy...", he grunted. "Too... noisy..."

"Back off!", the girl yelled, but it was too late by then.

A giant sword was suddenly raised into the air and came crashing down onto the car. With a worrying shreak the vehicle collapsed with its entire motor block bent inwards and sliced in half. The girl was still jogging towards the scene, but everything seemed to happen in slow motion. After a few seconds of blank shock, the driver threw open the door and jumped out, staring at the damage with plain incredulousness on his face. And yet, despite or maybe because of the otherworldly scene, the young man didn't seem to get the danger he himself was in.

"My... my car...", he just screached. "What the... what the hell did you do to my car?"

"Run away, stupid!", the girl called out once again.

He didn't seem to hear her at all.

"My car... what's wrong with you?", he kept stuttering.

The monster now switched his gaze towards him. As the eyeholes of the roughly furnished helmet focused on him, the man finally realized his fate and winced under the hateful stare. But before he could heed the girl's advice, the massive sword swung through the air once again, soundlessly and barely visible. The man continued to stare back in disbelieve, even as his upper body slid to the ground accompanied by a rush of blood.

Screams echoed through the street. This whole scene had attracted a lot of attention after all and even though some were faster when it came to grasping what had happened, others were still watching with widened eyes.

"Noisy...", the giant grumbled once again, turning around and looking for the source of the screams.

His eyes upon a group of women gathered at the edge of the sidewalk.

"Run, damn it!", the girl called out.

To her horror she realized that not even running would have been enough to save them. In spite of his cumbersome appearance, the monstrosity moved with barely visible, beastlike agility, jumping into the group, crushing one woman's face with his gauntlet fist and scattering the others as they ran for their lives screaming in panic.

"Noisy! Be quiet!", the knight yelled, reeling slightly as he put his blood-stained hand against his helmet.

It seemed even to the untrained eye that he was a bit disorientated. This time was used by many to escape his wrath, but not by everyone. A few people were still too shocked to move. The girl approached one of these groups.

"What are you waiting for, run!", she cried out, her arms flailing.

Now they listened for a change, as the girl was noting dryly after they stumbled to safety with uneasy steps. It was then when another shout echoed over the street:

"Drop the weapon and stand down!"

When the girl turned around she saw that a police offer who must have stumbled upon the scene with his motorbike had jumped off it and drawn his pistol to threaten the knight into submission. Pure futility of course.

"Don't even try it, just get away!", the girl yelled.

The monster however turned his attention to the newcomer and raised his blood-stained sword once again.

"This is my last warning, you hear me!", the officer shouted.

The knight disappeared in a blur, but the officer still must have seen it. Gunshots fell, two of them, with loud and echoing bangs.

"You... make... my head hurt...", the monster grunted as its sword found another victim in the valiant officer.

The girl grimaced as she ground her teeth so hard she feared they might shatter. She turned away and ran towards the next group of bystanders.

"Move, move, move! Hurry!"

She watched them leave, their faces pale from horror. Behind her the monster was thrashing around, kicking at a nearby car trying to reach the people who had been trying to hide behind it. The girl's fists clenched. She could not allow more people to suffer. She had to stop it, even when everything seemed hopeless.

"Don't even think about fighting that one, faceless girl", a smug voice sounded from aside her.

The girl darted to the side, away from the voice as she was turning around, her entire body going into a defensive posture. She watched him materialize. A golden knight whose armor shone in the sunlight, his spear tucked lightly beneath his armpit as he was taking in the scene in front of him.

"You...", the girl whispered.

"No need to thank me", he gave a cruel smirk. "Just focus on getting the smallfolk out of here. I'll handle the big guy and his rampage."

And with these words the dashing foreigner charged. The girl's eyes followed him towards the monster. That one was just standing above the rubble, going for a lethal stab with his sword. Luckily, before he could execute it, a shining spear was rammed into his side, causing him to tumble and miss his target in a way that his sword only stabbed into the pavement. But it was far from a killing strike, it seemed to only enrage him. With a howling roar the monster whirled around and lashed out at his attacker with a force so strong, the air itself seemed to explode around them. Even though the spearman had blocked it with his sun-crested shield, he was flung away into the side of a nearby car in which he half disappeared as it cushioned his tumble.

Any mortal man would have been killed by such a strike, but for this one it was just a minor nuisance. He reemerged from the wreckage, flexed his head to both sides and took on his fighting stance again the same moment he donned his mischievous smile.

"You seek a fight, Clegane? Come fight someone who can sting back!"

The rampaging monster kicked in frustration at the destroyed car on which he was standing, but he was leaving the man cowering beneath it alone, now only focusing on this new attacker.

"You!", it roared.

"I seem to invoke that reaction in people", the foreigner laughed, circling his way towards the street to get more space. "Just for your interest: I was hoping that you have thought of me and my sister in your last agonizing moments. And apparently you did, so bless me!"

"Still... talking... too much!", with these grunts this beast of man charged himself.

The clash was over in an instant. It appeared as if he would just crush his foe with pure strength, but the spearman sidestepped the attack in the very last moment, accompanied by a series of metallic bangs and flying sparks. Who hit whom was difficult to tell, but the beast was reeling slightly as he adjusted his stance towards his agile enemy.

"Don't worry, Clegane. Last time I only fought you to hear you confess", the knight put a bit more distance between himself and the beast. "This time I am just here to finish you!"

With another roar the monster's sword went for the kill once again. But this time the girl averted her gaze. It was true that there was little she could do right here. What she could do however, was getting all bystanders to safety just in case the battlefield expanded ever more. She spotted just another group of people standing at the edge of a nearby alley, watching the spectacle with wide eyes. She ran towards them, giving out stern warnings, all the while ignoring the carnage behind her as steel clashed and concrete cracked under the stress of the supernatural battle.


	10. Chapter 10 - The L, the V and the M

Hello everyone! How was life to you? Oh well... I know updates on this story take so long that you might think it's dead, but I'm still here, I'm still alive and I'm absolutely going to bring this story to the finish line.

I was always quite bothered about how many of the teaching writers I've been following, well, stopped writing the moment they began teaching. Now I know why. All the preparation is extremely time-consuming and that's why I barely managed to crawl onwards. But line by line, using even my pauses in the staffroom, I somehow managed. And can proudly present the next episode the story!

Also imagine my glee when I found not only the recommendation on TV Tropes, but the shout-out on Jaime Lannister's Pantheon page! Though I can't imagine Artoria actually giggling about chapter 4. I think it'd be more a faint chuckle and she would feel bad about that much schadenfreude. You have to keep appearances up, after all.

Anyway... Let's go right into the thick of fighting...

* * *

Chapter 10 - The Lion, the Viper and the Mountain

 **Oberyn**

He came from the left again. The Prince of Dorne once again evaded the giant greatsword and jumped behind a nearby car. The Mountain followed him, not in a circle, but straight through it. With a miserable creaking noise it was flung into the air, but Oberyn saw the opening immediately. Clegane had used his shield as a makeshift lever against the obstacle, leaving his left side completely exposed for a second or so. More than enough time for a superpowerd Red Viper. Oberyn darted forward and let his spear find its target under the shadow of the ruined car, burying it deeply into the joints beneath the giant's armpit. He would have driven it deeper into his flesh, but he already saw the sword once again coming down on his head. Disengaging from the combat, Oberyn darted backwards. The giant was now charging and closing in fast, so Oberyn went into a fast zig-zag, gaining precious seconds with every strike the howling madman missed. The next wall of a house came rapidly closer during this desperate flight. The moment Oberyn reached it and used it as a platform to jump back into the open street, it just exploded in puff of smoke and collapsing rubble as a the steel encased giant crashed into it. Seeing Clegane emerging immediatedely, Oberyn turned his back and raced along a number of thickly placed shops, all of which got thoroughly demolished as the Mountain cleaved a path of thorough destruction right through them. He only came to a stop when one of the heavier looking stone buildings collapsed on top of him, burying Clegane in the rubble shortly after Oberyn jumped back out into the street.

Gaining enough seconds to catch a single breath, Oberyn looked to the tip of his spear. In addition to the green glistening covering the steel in its entirety, several centimeters of it were also mingled with a deep red. Oberyn sighed.

 _Not deep enough at all. All I do is tickle him..._

He had hoped that enough of those tickles from his Noble Phantasm, the 'Sting of the Red Viper', would cause Clegane to slow down a bit. His poison was highly lethal, but needed time to spread out in its victim's body. Only a very high dosis of it would cause a creature of this madman's calibre to fall over immediately. Right now it seemed as if it was of no use however.

 _Who would have guessed that death would make this bastard only tougher?_

He couldn't even say how long the battle lasted up until then. A few hours, a few minutes, a few seconds. All of that was equally possible. The sun still stood high, but the market district that had become their battlefield was already thoroughly wrecked, with barely a single spot that remained unshattered. At least there were no more bystanders around as far as he could tell. The faceless girl seemed to use the time to intercept anyone trying to enter, even though he suspected that there were still many people hiding somewhere within the shops.

Before Oberyn could think any further, the Mountain was once again emerging from the rubble, seemingly without a scratch and barely slowed down. If anything, it had only pissed him off some more. The Red Viper readied his spear, awaiting to receive the next charge with steady feet.

 _Fine. No need to rush this. I just have to wait for a better opening._

He saw the tip of Clegane's massive greatsword swinging for him as the giant marched back out into the street with uncanny speed. Waiting until the last second, Oberyn dodged it to the left and marched up to him as he buried the blade deep into the cracking asphalt. Again this opening lasted only for a tiny fraction of a second, with Oberyn barely being able get a single glancing hit in before being forced to retreat from a massive lunge.

 _Seven hells..._

The Red Viper darted to a nearby shop, with the Mountain so close at his heels that he could swear he was able to hear his breath behind him. Stands with vegetables were smashed and their contents flung into the air, Oberyn dove through the rubble and ran a circle, hoping that Clegane was distracted enough to allow him some maneuvering. It was still a close call, but the Red Viper managed to turn around, duck under the incoming sword strike and run up past Clegane's defense. One second later Oberyn added another stab, this time just below the joints of the Mountain's pouldron, but the merciless retaliation in form of both sword and shield spinning into his direction made him jump backwards immediately.

 _Come on, bastard... You can't keep that pace up forever, can you?_

Oberyn watched the shattering of the shop-window in which Clegane's shield impacted with an impatient grimace. He didn't like being chased around like this, but for the moment it seemed to be his best option. Silently cursing, he retreated again, deciding to keep this game up for the time being.

 **Waver**

He couldn't tell what the exasperated reporter said or what was written with the moving letters below, but his voice was certainly frantic and the name 'Fuyuki' had been dropped several times already. Some snippets of video footage had been shown. Shaky pictures of a devestated wasteland amidst rows of low buildings. It looked like an earthquake and a tornado had a baby and got the bright idea to drop it right into a shopping district. The barkeeper stared at the small TV screen hanging in the corner with a horrified expression while his only guest tried to ignore it as best as he could. His only drinking guest that is. Robert Baratheon was slumped down at the bar, staring grimly into his beer. Of course Waver sat next to him, having been forced to tag along as always.

 _The hell is happening out there..._

He shot the drunkard a dark look. He seemed to be doing a great job ignoring what was happening out there. Again. Ever since Fujimura dropped them off the day before, this mountain of muscle was listless and didn't know what else to do. After a morning of lazing around, he suddenly got the idea to go looking for one of the bars he had visited with the old man before Waver had managed to track him down. Searching for it took the entire midday, but now that they were here, what little excitement he had about this goose chase had turned somewhat sour.

 _He is certainly not someone with the greatest attention span._

Waver sighed. He had tried to talk with him here and then. Mostly about this Kingslayer guy they had run into.

"Just some Lannister spawn, don't worry too much about him", Robert had said with a grim face as they sat in his room that evening. "If he tries something funny, I'll smash his pretty face in."

"So you are willing to fight him at least?", Waver asked carefully, something to which Robert reacted with a displeased grunt.

"Haven't you listened, boy? I will act if he comes seeking trouble, that much I can guarantee you. But this is not my fight anymore. I am not going out of my way to make it end up with just me, Joff and Ned's girl having to fight it out."

Waver had swallowed at that. He had several times made the attempt to bring the issue of the kid Servants up, but every time Robert turned angry and ordered him to shut up. By now he had resigned himself to the fact that this subject was forbidden.

"Mmh... I really thought I was doing you a favor here...", Robert grunted morosely, breaking the current silence. "This place gives off a more traditional sense even here in Shinto, I thought that was more to your liking. Thought that would help you be at ease."

Waver squinted at his own glass, the strange and bitter smell burning at his nostrils. The beer was still untouched.

"No thanks, I prefer to keep my head clear", he muttered.

"Come on", Rider complained. "You should feel flattered to be taken around by a king! Even if it is just a miserable one like me. You should at least have the decency to pretend to have fun!"

"What kind of encouragement is that?", Waver shot back, even though he could not help but feel a bit of stubborn pride that he had managed to frustrate that idiot.

Robert gave a dismissive grunt.

"In all seriousness though, I am stumped. You don't drink, you are afraid of touching women, I have never seen you smile and all you do is complain or shut yourself away in your room when I wouldn't take it upon myself to drag you out. At first I thought you just have trouble being a man, but right now I am thinking you aren't even human."

"I'm sorry that I don't meet your expectations...", Waver snarled. "... but I have to break it to you: Your desires aren't everyone else's!"

"Then I beg you, boy, please enlighten me! What exactly do you find fun?"

Waver frowned. For a second he was just stumped that Robert for once wasn't only talking in jest or in slurred complaints, he could see that the question was serious for once. For a sliver of a moment Waver felt a bit bad about having been so dismissive of his attempts to 'lighten him up' if he was seriously just trying to be nice. But then immediately the memories of the exact places Robert dragged him to came back to his mind and he felt his eyelids fall to form a scowl again. He opened his mouth to shoot back a reply, but oddly enough he found himself unable to come up with something he associated with fun. Instead he ended up taking another glimpse at the TV screen that was still showing the news.

"It certainly is not fun trying to distract yourself while something or someone causes so much havoc...", was Waver's final reply, though it came out unintentionally subdued.

"Uh-huh...", Robert gave a triumphant grunt as if he had won this conversation. "So that's the core of the matter, isn't it? You don't know yourself! All you ever did was hiding behind your books, that's why you don't know how to have fun."

"There is nothing wrong with being ambitious...", Waver replied, this time with more certainty.

"Surely not. Old Jon Arryn would have agreed wholeheartedly. But when you devote your whole life to an idea, you are sure to loose something of yourself sooner rather than later. My brother Stannis never learned to smile either and see what became of him... a grumpy bastard who even got abandoned by his own fucking hair for his constant moaning about perceived slights", he gave another deep sigh, looking down on his beer. "I am not as much of a fool as you might think me to be. I am aware of why you are doing this, of why you insist on this Grail nonsense. Seven hells, you told me yourself whenever you have your angry fits! But you don't actually care about your dusty old books, don't you? You don't care about the knowledge and the power you try to get from them. What you actually want is recognition, right? In a way, you are not all that different to a freshly annointed hedge knight who thinks everyone has to bow and kiss his arse. But I tell you, the moment you go to the tilts with your rusty ill-fitting armor a proper knight will come and knock you into the dirt. And when that happens and you don't have something else that makes you get up and laugh it off, then you end up like... well..."

 _... like you?_ , Waver thought bitterly.

He knew better than to push his luck bringing that comparison up. Robert may have been in a comparably contemplative mood, but he wouldn't take open criticism like this well. Instead, Waver watched him empty his cup and wipe the froth from his beard in one swift motion.

"Hah... well, I can't blame you that much for disliking this beer after all. The native's booze may be good, but this here tastes like piss."

Waver couldn't help but put on a grim smile. He hadn't tasted his one, but the smell was indeed terrible, even if that was mostly due to him never having had a liking to alcohol. He could simply never understand why you would willingly blur your senses with that poison. In any case, when Robert noticed his expression, he suddenly sported a broad smile.

"Ah! I see! So you can smile after all!", he laughed.

"I'm not...", Waver swallowed and fought his facial muscles back down.

"Mmh... so how is your opinion on singing?"

"What's that about all of a sudden?", Waver couldn't help but yell in irritation.

"Just a question, that is all...", the muscle monster whistled innocently.

That wasn't a good sign at all.

"I don't care about it. And even if I would care, all you know are drinking songs and by now I have heard all of them!"

Robert laughed at that.

"I was not talking about just us competing. Raiga-dono mentioned a kind of place the natives go to in order to sing, regardless of how shitty they are, just to have a few laughs without caring about embarrassment. I'm thinking that could be just the kind of thing that would make that stiff face of yours crack a smile!"

Waver struggled to understand the meaning of his words, but when they clicked in place in his head, a burst of anger crept up from his bowels.

"That's... you are talking about karaoke?"

"I suppose that's how he called it, yes. Seven hells, I used to make that ice-shitting bastard Ned Stark laugh, so I'd be damned if I give you up now!"

"I am not going to-", Waver was already blustering himself up in protest when suddenly the door of the place opened. Shooting a glance to the unsuspecting witness of this scene, Waver froze up and backed down.

Because he vaguely remembered that face and that dark robe with the cross hung around his neck. And when his cold eyes met his, a wave of fear went over him. With no choice but to rely on that brute, Waver immediately pulled at his sleeve to get his attention.

"It's... it's him!", he motioned helplessly.

Robert Baratheon turned around and frowned as he watched the man with the priest robe approaching. He was one of the men they had encountered when they were storming the Tohsaka manor, a Master of one of the kids. He saw Waver's distressed reaction, but seemed rather amused about it.

"Do not worry, I have not come to fight, only to talk", he instead turned towards the barkeeper, speaking a Japanese phrase that Waver had heard so often in Robert's company that he knew it by now: "The next round is on me!"

Robert grunted and put on a smile, though Waver noted that it wasn't quite as cheerful as it usually was.

"See? There is someone who knows how to make friends!"

"That works only with you though...", the boy groaned.

The priest seated himself next to Robert, who instantly pushed back his chair to allow Waver to join in on the conversation. The man had a grim look on his face and barely registered when the barkeeper asked him a question, likely for his own drink. The priest's blunt reply caused him to frown and fetch a simple glass of water.

"So what is it you want from us?", Waver asked warily while Robert was too busy squinting at this choice of drink.

The priest glanced at him with a joyless smile.

"Is that a way to introduce yourself, Master of Rider?", he asked.

Waver swallowed, still unsure whether this was some kind of trap. But of course, Robert was the one breaking the ice.

"Surely, little Arya must have told you who I am", he stated bluntly.

"Yes... in life you were a man called King Robert Baratheon. The father of the boy that my mentor summoned", the priest replied.

"The very one. King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, the First Men and all the rest. The boy at my side is the one who dragged me out of my grave, Waver Velvet. Now your turn, friend!"

The odd priest nodded with a seriousness as if he was speaking funeral rites.

"My name is Kirei Kotomine. My mentor and the one on whose side I joined this Grail War was Tokiomi Tohsaka. And to answer your question, young Waver Velvet, I have searched this city not truly for you, but to find an answer to a question for myself that doesn't concern you."

Waver found himself frowning and oddly enough, Robert turned around to exchange a similarly confused look with him. Kotomine, clearly seeing the reaction to his speaking in riddles, gave a grim smile.

"As I said, it doesn't concern you. It is just that I happened to have been reminded that if something happened to me, my father surely would like to hear of it."

Robert's eyes narrarowed and Waver noticed that he glanced for a second back to his beer before turning back to the priest.

"So it is about Joff then...", he grunted.

The priest nodded, not saying anything, he was taking in the reaction of the giant just like Waver did.

"How did he die?", Robert asked with a low voice.

"I was not there myself, but Arya told me he fell valiantly fending off a man known as 'The Mountain that Rides' who appears to have been summoned as Berserker."

Robert gave a dark chuckle.

"I highly doubt that 'valiant' is the word the girl used", he mused. "I appreciate the attempt to console a grief-stricken father though. It is good to know that he showed some guts in the end. Few men dare to stand up against a monster like Clegane."

Kotomine kept studying the king's face with an increasingly curious expression.

"You take that news far better than I have expected you to do."

Robert grunted in acknowledgement and before Waver had time to react, a giant hand grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it hard as he was desperately trying to escape this grip.

"The boy here kind of convinced me that this outcome was inevitable the way it was. Or at least he kept rambling about it until I had no choice but to accept it."

It was then he released his grip and Waver had to hold his shoulder with the other hand, rubbing at the throbbingly painful bruise that was surely about to grow there.

"You're welcome", he muttered.

Robert ignored him, continuing the conversation immediately:

"And what about Ned's girl? You made it sound like she had escaped Clegane's wrath. Bloody hells, what sick kind of god pits that madman against children?"

"I recalled her at the time. Not that she appreciated the gesture for it made her unable to save my mentor and his family", Kotomine clenched his fist, Waver noticed that almost all of his command spells had lost colour and turned into simple scars.

"Yeah, she always seemed quite fierce to me, even though I knew her little", Rider commented, his mood liftening. "I couldn't tell either way if she doesn't want me to, but it still doesn't seem like she came with you. Where is she now?"

"She went to hunt the Master of Berserker, but unfortunately...", he waved towards the TV screen that was still showing news about the local devestation. "... it seems that she found Berserker first and now she has to keep civilians away from this battlefield between him and Lancer."

"I see."

A long stretch of silence set in, in which nobody seemed sure what to say. At last Robert did the most obvious thing and raised his cup.

"To Joff!", he toasted. "May he find some peace of mind in the next life."

Kotomine raised his glass in unison, even if it looked a bit silly to do it with simple water. When Rider noticed that Waver hesitated to do so as well, he shot him a dark look and Waver saw no choice but to lift his cup and pretend to take a single sip. Just making the stinking brew touch his lips was nauseating, but Robert gave an acknowledging nod as he saw his compliance.

"To your house of Tohsaka!", Robert raised his cup once again as he turned back to the priest. "May their sacrifices be not in vain!"

They repeated the procedure and once again Waver saw himself forced to emulate them.

"And to little Arya! She may not equal her aunt in beauty as of yet, but certainly in fierceness! May she succeed in preventing any more victims of the old lion's mad dog."

Waver noticed that the priest frowned at that before he drank up and Waver could not help but feel the same sentiment.

"So you are not going to help him?"

Robert glanced to the TV screen, grimacing slightly beneath his beard.

"It does seem like Martell doesn't need my help at the moment and even if I wanted, I have come to know better than to throw myself into battle after drinking."

Half a dozen complaints about the unlikelihood of that went through Waver's head, but for once he kept his mouth shut. It wouldn't help much to show disagreement when in the company of an enemy. Even though this Kotomine guy seemed troubled and unhappy as he was staring into his empty glass, clenching his teeth.

 **Oberyn**

With a crashing sound and a wave of smoke and debris, another wall went down as Clegane's sword tore it apart. The Red Viper had already jumped far away as it happened, barely able to get a few strikes in that ineffectively scraped against the giant's armor.

 _Good thing my stamina has increased as well. I don't think I could have kept up this pace while alive. Even though I am not quite sure whether he would have..._

"Stand still! Uaaaaaaargh!", the giant roared as if to rip Oberyn out of thoughts.

Like a charging bull Clegane plowed his way towards him, pointing his sword threateningly at his prey who once again tried to dance away from him.

 _Come on! Come on! Come on! Fall over and die already!_

The Mountain surely must have had the same thought. And even though dulled by madness, this time he took a surprising sidestep in his path, forcing Oberyn to adjust his stance and suddenly he found himself with the emptied street at his back. He cursed silently at his own idiocy, but had little time to think how he could have avoided being hounded on terms that were not his own. One step, two steps, three steps he retreated away, the last one being half a jump, and yet it was not possible to increase the distance between them. Much the opposite happened even, with the charging brute coming straight for his neck with cold steel. Oberyn managed to evade to his right at the last moment, but instead of burying itself in the ground like so often before, Clegane managed to stop his momentum at the last moment and guide it towards the Red Viper. It was too improvised and too haphazard an attack to readjust his sword, so what hit Oberyn's shield was only the flat side of it, otherwhise he assumed the strike would have been powerful enough to cut him in half, armor and all. Because that's how he felt as he slithered and tumblered over the broken asphalt, reeling from the impact with a wave of pain coming from his left arm.

 _Seven hells!_

With no more cover in sight, Oberyn had no choice but readied himself to take the next attack head-on. He wouldn't survive a direct hit, that was for sure, but he had to take his chance with another evasion to get back towards the walls of whatever building was not already leveled. He ground his teeth and focused on the yellow shield with the three dogs and of course the rapidly nearing sword, waiting for the right moment...

... until the sword rapidly moved backwards.

"Uaaargh!"

He could barely believe his eyes as the Mountain stumbled and turned his attention away from him, swinging his sword in a wide arc that stopped in the middle of the air with an explosive metallic impact sound. Oberyn should have gone for the exposed back of his foe, but his reflexes were already anticipating the attack, causing him to jump to the side and see what exactly had the audacity to interrupt the fight and charge into Gregor Clegane from behind: A knight in shining Kingsguard armor, either too confident or too mad for his own good, as he was bearing the full brunt of Clegane's attack with his now bent and twisted mirror shield. His boots were buried up to his ancles in the broken asphalt as he was hopelessly pushing against the madman's strength.

 _The Kingslayer?_

Oberyn could not help but gape in disbelief. In that moment Jaime Lannister turned his shield inwards so that Clegane's sword slid across it with a sickening scraping sound and buried itself into the ground once the brute's strength lost its target. A black-red sword darted forward, going straight for the minuscule timeframe in which the Mountain had lost his balance, found its way around his giant shield and stabbed into the monster's side. Even though his armor there was at its thinnest, it previously took Oberyn a good amount of effort to penetrate it, but the Kingslayer managed to draw blood on his first try and it might have become a killing strike if not for the roaring madman's following rampage forcing him to back off immediately.

With the two disengaged Oberyn readied his spear, this time intending to go for it once Clegane lowered his guard again, but instead of following up of his first series of strikes, the Mountain himself for once backed off circling in a way that made it obvious that he was trying to keep both of them in front of him.

 _Seven hells, he may have lost his wits but he still has all his instincts..._

Using the sudden moment of pause he turned his attention to the Lannister knight.

"I must admit, I haven't expected you of all people to show up, Kingslayer."

"It can't be helped", he replied unusually cheerful. "With all the noise you are making, you are bound to attract some attention!"

He pointed with his sword upwards and Oberyn's eyes followed that way up until he realized that there was an odd flying machine hovering above the battlefield. The news helicopter's rotors made enough noise that Oberyn found himself at a loss for how he managed to completely miss its presence during the carnage of the day.

"A lot of people are going to be very pissed about this...", Oberyn admitted sheepishly.

"You really should have brought your new Master to erect a Bounded Field", Jaime observed mockingly.

"After what your Master did with my old previous one? You have to see why I am not going to take any chances!"

The Kingslayer nodded, the expression beneath his helmet looked almost solemn.

"Good point... and for that very reason my Master has put up one in the alley right behind this line of shops!", the knight slightly tilted his head into the destined direction, not letting Clegane out of his eyes.

"I suppose he won't come with us if we ask nicely", Oberyn grimaced.

As if to answer that question, the giant was glowering at the Kingslayer now. The air in between them grew so thick it looked like sparks were about to fly.

"As if things were ever that easy...", the Kingslayer chuckled, right before the giant's feet lifted from the ground and made him dart towards the silver knight.

This time the lion of Lannister was more clever. He didn't try to hold his ground, but deflected the attacked and sidestepped. Unlike Oberyn though, he was not nearly fast enough to completely evade all of the repercussions of Clegane. He surely would have ended up cornered if not for Oberyn to charge into the beast's seeminly uncovered back. But Clegane's instincts worked fast. He swirled around and Oberyn had to evade his sword, though he could see that Lannister was using this moment to guide his sword through the giant's defense. Just like that, they drove him backwards.

 _Damn it... fighting alongside the Kingslayer... I better won't mention that this actually comes as a relief. I would never hear the end of it..._

Their fighting styles were obviously entirely different. Oberyn was lightly armed and armored, more like a common sellsword than an actual knight. He was thankful for the reach, but had to be careful of Clegane's blows. All he could do was dance around him, but that also made it possible for him to lure the Mountain into every direction he wanted. The Kingslayer was not so fortunate. Where Oberyn was like a feather in the wind, he comparably had to stand his ground like a solid rock, sparks flying from shield and sword each time the monstrosity went to the offensive. Every lesser man would have been cleaved in half after the first two strikes, but the Lannister's counters were precise and skillful enough to nullify almost all of it. But even then, in spite of his skill, the Mountain either saw him as the lesser danger or simply as easier to deal with. In any case, he now focused his attention more on the Kingsguard knight, allowing Oberyn even more room and more time to think strategically.

The line of shops drew nearer with every step as the Kingslayer allowed the Mountain to push him backwards. There was a bit of actual retreat in their movements, but the Mountain was too busy fending off the attacks from two sides to make any serious counterstrikes. But Oberyn knew things would change once they entered what appeared to be a tailor's shop.

 _My reach won't mean much there inside and even the Kingslayer will struggle to keep his dance of swords going with so many obstacles. But it seems we have little choice..._

Grinding his teeth, Oberyn circled towards the Lannister's position so that they both faced the Mountain from the front. Like this they were able to move simultaneously, both in terms of steps backwards as in their flurry of stabs with which they kept the raging madman busy.

"Hold... still... already!", the beast roared, his massive sword slashing around in a deadly storm.

But this time, it would find neither steel nor foe, since the two knights exchanged knowing smiles before darting apart, leaving the Mountain to stumble onwards into the shop window, shattering glass and mannequins alike. Oberyn knew that now time was important, they had to pressure him before Clegane turned around came bursting out around the shop like the storm of carnage he was. The Kingslayer seemed to realize that as well, as he came back to Oberyn's side as they rushed into the breach, sword and spear lunging forward at the monster that already awaited them.

 **Jaime**

Fighting alongside the Red Viper was certainly an experience he hadn't expected, but it ended up a necessary one, no matter how much Kiritsugu complained when Jaime had called him. But watching a battle of the Grail Wars on the news channel was something even the grumpy hitman had to concede was irrefutably bad.

"Most mages don't bother to craft bounded fields that are able to counter ordinary cameras", he had stated grimly, assessing the situation. "But it doesn't seem that there is a bounded field involved at all."

"Will it be a problem for you?", Jaime had asked warily, still unsure about the limitations of magic.

"I am not most mages", Kiritsugu had replied with a barely contained sneer. "Just focus ony getting Berserker into the Bounded Field. I will not be able to cover the whole street."

 _I'm trying though..._

Oathkeeper danced through the air, stabbing through Clegane's defense seemingly from all directions at once, a constant rain of black and red steel. The Mountain's armor had the reputation to be impenetrable. Its layers upon layers of steel, mail and leather certainly would push any lesser man to his knees, unable to move with it. Only a man of Clegane's freakish size was able to move and fight with it like any regular knight. But when facing Valyrian steel, he could as well have clad himself in parchment. Jaime had managed to penetrate it in numerous places, with red blood puring out everywhere, drenching his surcoat and generally making the Mountain look like he was chewed and spit out by a midsized dragon. But if this bloodloss was slowing him down though, he certainly was good to hide it.

 _Seven hells..._

He nearly fell over a clothing rack lying on the ground while he deflected another of the Mountain's strikes with his shield. When they had entered the shop, initially having the upper hand and pushing the Mountain backwards with ferocious aggressiveness, it immediately left the entire storefront in shambles. The shockwaves and deflections cleared all of the racks and cupboards, smashed all the lights, created furrows in the ground and removed large swathes of the ceiling. Unfortunutely that also meant lots and lots of obstacles that made it hard to move freely without giving the enemy openings and soon enough he was the one chasing them again, barely bothered by his surroundings.

 _Oh come on..._

Jaime listened to his own ragged breathing even more than the sound of clashing steel while he was busy fending off attacks, waiting for another opportunity to drive through the Mountain's surprisingly decent defense.

 _How come I am the one he focuses on? Doesn't he have more of a score to settle with Martell?_

Jaime knew that there was little point in complaining. He of course paid attention to what the Red Viper was doing in order to synchronize their attacks and abuse the openings created by Clegane's divided attention. But right now he somehow switched between attacks and haphazard attempts to clear Jaime's path from debris with swift kicks. The Kingsguard knight should have appreciated the gesture, but at the moment he'd preferred some kind of relief from the constant onslaught against his already heavily battered shield.

 _It will cost me a lot of magical energy to repair it... again..._

All too late he noticed another incoming downwards strike, the threat of a forward bashing shield turned out to be only a feint. Jaime raised his ruin of a shield in the last moment, but this time deflecting turned out to be difficult. He ground his teeth as steel bit in steel and a wave of pain made his whole body shiver.

 _Damn it, not again._

Clegane put his whole weight behind the strike that had impacted on the shield, obviously trying to drive Jaime onto his knees. Like a cornered scorpion Jaime lashed out, first with a low faint, then with a direct hit into the Mountain's shoulder. He seemed to barely notice it, continuing to push Jaime to the ground. He felt how his boots were driven into the floor, shattering the entire area around him... at least until the resistance of it suddenly stopped and he found himself without ground to stand on.

"Oh for fuck's sake!"

 _A cellar!_

 **Oberyn**

The Red Viper was dashing through the debris to come to the Kingslayer's help, but even then he couldn't hide a certain sense of amusement when under the pressure of Clegane's entire weight, the white knight suddenly disappeared into a gaping hole in the floor. Oberyn's retaliation came in the same instand, burying his spear deeply in the unguarded calf of the dumbfounded brute.

"Uaaaargh!"

With an earshattering outcry he flailed around and the next thing Oberyn knew was that he was flying through the air, a shockwave of pain numbing his senses. He saw the shield coming, but was unable to disentangle himself fast enough to do more than taking it with his own shield. Fortunately, he barely felt how he impacted in the opposing wall. He wondered whether that was a side effect of his spirit self. That idiot Kayneth once rambled about Heroic Spirits being unable to be hurt by anything non-magical. Therefore taking a shield created by magic to the face was a bad idea, but getting catapulted across the countryside seemingly had little effect on him besides the nausea. Trying to shake it off, he emerged from the sizeable hole he created and faced the charging brute once again.

 _I hardly believe this persistence..._

Darting away at the last moment, he watched the Mountain impacting where he had impacted, completely tearing down the entire wall and opening up a brand new walkway to the next shop over.

 _That's it..._

Oberyn dared to make a short look around while Clegane was still heaving himself out of the wreckage. The wall opposing the entrance was right behind him. With renewed determination he brought it behind his back.

 _Come on, then!_

While still waiting for the next charge, Oberyn saw a rather annoyed looking Kingslayer emerge from the stairs next to the entrance. He seemed ready to pincer the Mountain again, but Oberyn hurriedly made a motion to stop him with his spear hand since Clegane had apparently not noticed his return yet.

 _Attack me, you bloody moron!_

And so he did. Sparks flew as Oberyn made another short stab at Clegane's right shoulder as he jumped to the left, but it was more of a feint than anything else. The only important part was that the charging brute tore through the wall once again, leaving him reeling and stumbling out into the open.

"Now!", Oberyn shouted and Jaime was already at his side, his accursed Valyrian sword flashing through the orange-tinted air.

Twilight had already arrived as the lion and the viper cornered a mountain.

 **Kariya**

He felt them struggle. Hundreds and hundreds of them trapped in a cycle of being born and being burned away. He felt them wriggling desperately, eating away at his body all at once in a desperate attempt to stave off their inevitable doom. The agony seemed to be already eroding away his memory. Or maybe it was just that he was so lost that he never even noticed how he escaped that dreadful mansion that had turned into a grave. He didn't come far, that much was certain. After shuffling through back-alleys and near abandoned neighborhoods, he collapsed here in a dark corner god knows where. Barely able to prop himself up a brick wall, he was just awaiting the end. Amidst garbage cans and stolen bycycles, below the falling night.

Berserker was fighting.

That much was sure. And he fought for hours. The worms in his body screamed in agony as they were consumed and reborn, just to fuel the cruel monster's wanton hatred. Kariya had used a command spell to send him forth, but apparently that order just unshackled him. Not that Kariya cared much. There was nothing to care about anymore. Whether Berserker managed to take some of his enemies down along with him or not, that was something he could take no solace in. He lost the purpose of this fight. He killed her. Not Berserker, Kariya himself killed her in his carelessness. He accepted that fact by now. And was already prepared to loose his life to pay for his sins.

The strangest part was, that he was not scared of death. At first he was furious at himself for throwing away all hope for happiness. He was furious at Zouken for making him contract with Berserker and furious at Tohsaka for making it necessary in the first place, but somewhere along the way they stopped to matter. Nothing mattered anymore. He lost. He was about to die. A year of agony had apparently trained his body to take the stress, to take being destroyed from the inside, because even now when his mind had given up, his body was still oddly clinging to life, even though he was praying for a swifter ending b now. Somehow he had the faint hope that when his body finally gave up, when Berserker drained him to the last bit and took his life, that he would be able to see her again. He surely would fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness. And yet he cursed himself that he hadn't started to think up what he would say before the pain numbed his mind and made it difficult to form coherent thoughts. The idea somehow amused him.

"So... this is... how it ends...", he muttered with a dry and coarse throat, every muscle movement reminding him that his body was in his death throes, loosing the fight against the all-consuming worms at every front.

"Have you truly fallen this low?", a female voice rang through the dark and deserted alley, almost melodical and yet full of disdain.

Kariya looked up and saw her standing right in front of him, radiant like a burning flame. A foreign woman in a long red dress with red hair, red lips and an overwhelming aura of light that filled Kariya with a warmth that for once wasn't a sign of the crest worms burning away inside his body. She was overwhelmingly beautiful and yet a blind fool could see that there was nothing human about her. She was driving the darkness from this place and if he had still cared about his own survival, he would have been terrified of what could only be the Servant Caster.

In spite of himself, he gave a small choking sound that was supposed to be a chuckle.

"You... have come... to kill me?", he asked with a faint smile. "Come on, then... Get it over with..."

"So you have truly given up?", she looked down on him with an expression that only contained contempt.

"Disappointed?", Kariya shot back. "Don't expect me... to fight... there is... nothing... nobody... to fight anymore... I lost her... I lost everything..."

Her expression darkened even further. The red woman's gaze was piercing and made him uncomfortable despite everything. He tried to avert her eyes and looked to the ground instead, but somehow he could still feel how she looked down on him.

"Are truly so miserable a creature? Are you truly so blind in your obsession that you have forgotten the one soul who actually does secretly pray for your victory?"

Kariya blinked. He tried to look up again, but stopped at her feet. His mind was hazy. For a second he was confused about whom she was talking about.

"There is... nobody... I was always... just fighting... for myself...", he croaked.

A picture flashing up in his mind told him otherwise, but Kariya didn't want to believe it. The woman in front of him gave a chuckle. It was almost compassionate.

"Just this once, you speak the truth. And yet your misguided struggle has inspired a spark of hope. The flames told me. The Lord of Light showed it to me and he never lies. I saw her. A broken girl, fearfully speaking her prayers in the shadows, where no one could hear her. Prayers for hope. Prayers for salvation. Prayers for a victory of yours."

Kariya once again just blinked in confusion. His heart was racing and his aching body seemed to burn so hard he thought he was about to burst into flame.

"Sakura?", the name filled him with horror.

 _How could I forget her?_

"Indeed. The girl you claimed to be fighting for."

Kariya ground his teeth and clenched his fists. That was about the only show of strength he could still muster.

"It is... to late... her mother... Aoi... I let her die... she will... never forgive me..."

For a moment, the red woman didn't answer, but he could still feel her intense stare on him.

"What you did may be unforgivable, but what right do you have to doom her for your own sins? What right do you have, to condemn her to a fate of pain and suffering, just out of your miserable self-pity?", she implored.

Kariya didn't know what to say.

 _My sins? Her fate? She is right... I promised her... I promised her..._

"I... promised her...", it took him a while to realize that there were cold tears running down his cheeks. "I... promised... her..."

"Do you still intent to hold that promise?", the red woman asked, now almost gently.

Now he managed to raise his eyes. He looked into her red eyes and found them unyielding but not without pity. Something was burning away at his heart, something that for once was not the worms. It a rapidly expanding wave of regret, anger and fury about how he could have forgotten her in his misery.

"How?", he croaked, almost screamed. "How? I... I can't..."

"The worms are killing you. This curse born out of the darkness of the Great Other will be your end...", she kneeled down right in front of him, eyes now on the same level as his as she was showing a strange pendant to him. "... if you let them!"

Kariya swallowed, it tasted like bile and blood. He could not avert his gaze from it. It was a red ruby with a silver chain, a cross engraved on it. He faintly remembered that stone, but in his current state of mind, he couldn't quite pinpoint where exactly he had seen it...

... but here it was, undoubtedly, with the red woman holding it out for him to take. It was an offer. An offer of salvation.

Kariya swallowed again, the taste of blood now dominated. He wanted to take it, he wanted to clutch it, hold it to his chest and cherish it. But there was still this nagging feeling that he didn't deserve a second chance. Not after what he did.

 _Aoi... Rin... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I will try... to make it... right... this time!_

With one last display of strength, he lifted his right arm from the ground. He couldn't feel his hand and his fingers barely reacted to his commands, every muscle was like burned away. And yet, somehow, Kariya managed to hold it out and when the red woman lowered the triangular ruby into it, he managed to grasp it with three fingers.

It was then, when it started to emit light. A bright, blinding light that was driving away not only the darkness outside, but the darkness within himself as it engulfed all of his senses.

"Uaaaaaarghh! Uaaaaah! Aaaaarrgh!"

Kariya Matou's screams echoed through the alley as his entire body was overtaken by what felt like burning flames. Every thought was driven out of his mind, everything was just focusing on keeping the pain at bay. This pain... of death... only after several seconds he realized that it was not his own death for once. The crest worms were driven away by the holy light, his body was cleansed of their filth by it. And when it finally subsided, nothing but a hollow numbness remained.

In the dark back-alley, Kariya was staring at his fist that was clenching firmly around the red pendant. And he realized that this numbness was a feeling he hadn't sensed in a year, a feeling so mundane that he was barely able to grasp its meaning: It was the absence of pain.

"Is it possible?", he croaked.

His throat was dry, but he could speak clearly without drowning in his own blood. Kariya's body was still stiff and unmoving, but he could feel that his ruined bones were back in place and that he was seeing with both eyes again. He could hardly believe it. Zouken's curse, Zouken's presence, it was all gone.

"How...", he barely started to speak, when a sudden sense of dizziness overcame him.

For all the joy that a restored body brought to him, it was short-lived as a different kind of pain overcame him. This time it was not physical in nature. It felt like someone was trying to suck his thoughts out of his brain with a vacuum cleaner. His thoughts melted away until just one terrifying word remained.

 _Berserker._

"You are remembering it already, are you?", the red woman spoke with a serious voice. "The reason why you were in need of those parasites. If you are not sacrificing your body for magic... your Servant has no choice but to feed directly on your soul."

Panic took a hold of him. It was ridiculous. He had been calm and accepting of death before, but now it terrified him. The red woman reminded him that he still had a goal, that he was still needed, but now he was at the brink of death once again.

"You tricked me!", he robbed away from her, desperate to escape, but his numb arms and legs were unable to carry him far. "You played me for a fool! You saved from the crest worms only so that Berserker can finish this business!"

The red woman's gaze kept pressuring him. She didn't even need to move. Her overwhelming presence was enough to suffocate him.

"I assure you, I did not. I offered you to rid you of the demons that haunted your body and forced you into a path that could only lead to destruction. You accepted", she stretched out her hand towards him. "What you will now decide, Kariya Matou, lies entirely with you. If you choose to remain a Master, you will die. But... there is another way..."

 **Jaime**

Sweat was dripping down his brow and every muscle in his body seemed on fire, but Jaime Lannister didn't care much. He was in his element. Defending, side-stepping, attacking. All his movements were in a single deadly flow. The Mountain was a formidable foe, but against both him and the Red Viper, there seemed to be little hope for him managing to pull something unexpected against them.

 _Hell... even the surroundings work in our favor. For all his crazy talk, Kiritsugu knew what he was doing when he chose this._

The alley was narrower than the market district, but entirely free of obstacles. Jaime could move freely, evade freely and Oberyn had room to create openings through his pincer attacks. And after all this time the Red Viper had stalled him before Jaime arrived and all this time they were fighting him from then on, the bleeding monstrosity was finally slowing down.

"Come on then! Let's finish this!", Jaime yelled mostly at the Mountain, but Oberyn must have understood his intention either way.

The Mountain that Rides charged forward. Jaime greeted with his battered and deformed shield, guiding it into the ground. In the same he brought Oathkeeper forward and used it to cut over Clegane's shield, which he used to haphazardly defend himself. Dozens of times this had been enough, but this time the monstrosity didn't manage to disentangle himself fast enough. An opening the Red Viper immediately exploited.

"Haaaaargh!", with a scream he stabbed with his accursed spear deeply into the giant's knee.

Once again, Jaime noted that Clegane used to shrug attacks like this off, but this time the Red Viper actually managed to put his entire weight behind the attack, causing the Mountain finally to tumble and fall to his knees. Jaime was onto him like a vulture starved for blood, tearing through Clegane's awkward defense he pushed away the shield and guided Oathkeeper towards his collossal helmet.

Sparks flew as the Valyrian Steel tore through steel and flesh in one swift motion. A moment of unsure silence followed in which Jaime was contemplating bringing some distance between him and the Mountain again, but then it fell. The Berserker's helmet hit the ground with a metallic clank with his ugly head rolling out of it and coming to a stop at Jaime's feet. When Oberyn retrieved his spear, the last thing that still propped up his corpse was gone. The headless Mountain fell onto the asphalt and stayed there, finally dead.

Jaime sighed. He only just now realized how exhausted his war. He was breathing heavily and his head was pounding relentlessly as soon as the thrill of the battle subsided. The Red Viper seemed only mildly winded when compared to him. And yet he couldn't help but crack a smile. They both did as they stepped away from the corpse of the fallen foe.

"Truth be told, that was a little anticlimactic in the end", Jaime admitted.

"I won't complain as long as justice is done", Oberyn replied casually, already turning around to leave.

Jaime looked down at their badly battered foe and at the huge and distorted head of the madman they had struck down. It already started to fade away in a black vapor.

"He was certainly a man who had a lot to answer for."

He heard a sneer coming from Oberyn and already rolled with his eyes. Right now he was not in the mood to answer to derisive mentions of his moniker or perceived injustice he was blamed for. Jaime was already preparing some verbal comebacks when he noticed how that vapor came only from Clegane's rapidly decomposing flesh, leaving a grim white skull exposed beneath. When he looked towards Clegane's body, he noticed that it seemed as if on fire, but nothing actually began to disappear.

 _Are spirits like us actually supposed to that on death?_

Jaime took a careful step backwards, raising the Valyrian blade again that was still in his hands.

"Prince Oberyn!", he called out, angered about his own shortsightedness.

"What is it, Kingslayer? Do you want to continue where we left off in our last duel that badly?"

"I think we should do just that, but only after we dealt with Clegane."

Oberyn turned back around, a confused frown on his face.

"I'm not sure what you-", the words remained stuck in his throat.

The flames seemed to cleanse Clegane's corpse more than anything. They burned away the blood, they burned away the surcoat with the three hounds, they somehow even burned away the holes in his armor. How that is even possible was anyone's guess. But when they were finished, only the thoroughly cleaned bare steel was remaining, steel that brimmed in a silvery blue beneath the now already darkened sky. The corpse then twitched and began to move. It still had no head, but that seemed to faze it little.

When the headless corpse pushed itself from the ground, it wore the white of the Kingsguard.

"Seven fucking hells!", Oberyn shouted in his exasperation. "Just how many goddamn lives does that bastard have?"

"You'd be surprised...", Jaime replied, half unbelieving of what he was seeing, half annoyed at his own blindness. "Truth be told, I kinda should have seen it coming."

He never saw Cersei's pet himself, she had already sent it out into the Eyrie by the time he had returned from the Riverlands, but he heard the stories of what she allowed to be created in her madness and heard what it was capable of. Undoubtedly, there it was right in front of him, that nightmarish affront against the gods, picking up its sword and raising it in one swift motion: Ser 'Robert Strong'.

Still out of his breath, Jaime readied Oathkeeper again, awaiting another charge. Oberyn next to him seemed to expect the same. But that charge never came. The headless giant just stood there, glowering at them as if staring them down with invisible eyes.

"What even is this thing?", then Oberyn asked, still wide-eyed.

"Just some left-overs that stubbornly refuse to die... well, it seems it doesn't want to take the initiative for once."

"It doesn't matter either way", the Red Viper shot back. "No matter how many times it takes, I will send this... this thing... back into the hell it belongs to!"

With that he jumped at him, his spear shining in the moonlight. But the sudden attack was parried just as suddenly with one swift motion of the giant's silver shield. As if on reflext, its greatsword darted forward and Oberyn, obviously taken aback by so much precision, was barely able to evade certain death. He stepped back and the giant... didn't follow up. Regaining his composure, Oberyn began to circle him. But instead of focusing solely on him, the headless giant slowly retreated, careful to keep both of the knights in front of him.

 _Who would have thought that loosing his head would make that bastard more clever?_

Seeing no other way out, Jaime joined the Red Viper and added his sword to their attacks. Their combined strikes were met with caution and strength, the latter of which didn't change at all, but the monster seemed focused on defense at all.

"The only question remaining", Jaime said in between two of his strikes. "... is how you kill something that is already dead."

"It moves, so it uses its muscles", Oberyn replied with a rarely shown stubbornness. "I'm sure it will stop moving when we cut it to pieces!"

With that they drove it back, sword and spear cutting and stabbing at it in unision, sparks flying as the headless creature was pushed against a wall. They only stopped when they realized that they weren't alone anymore. Oberyn noticed it first and, wary as he was, jumped back to gain more room. Suddenly finding himself alone against the monster and sure of how it wasn't keen on charging headlessly forward, Jaime did the same, unusually glad of being able to catch a few breaths.

 _What's up with my stamina, damn it?_

He looked around saw that the movements he had seen at the edge of his vision were not belonging to an onlooker of flesh and blood. It were shadows on the walls surrounding the alley. Shadows that belonged to no one, moving on their own.

"What mad trick comes now?", Oberyn asked.

"I'm just as stumped as you are", Jaime replied vaguely.

A headless giant was already bothersome enough, but he had no idea how he could defend himself against moving shadows. They emerged from the walls, reaching out with black hands and black daggers, one after another. While Clegane's corpse retreated further away from them down the alley, they chose to surround them soundlessly. The knight of the Kingsguard counted roughly a dozen. And all at once, they threw themselves at them.

Not knowing what else to do, Jaime swung Oathkeeper at them, preparing himself to evade their strikes... but that proved to be unnecessary. Oathkeeper flared up in bright red and like a ferocious storm cut through the shadows, causing them to implode on contact. After he had retreated so much expecting a difficult encounter, Jaime couldn't help but find that a little underwhelming.

"Come on, Martell, they are harmless. We have to cut off the Mountain's esca-", when he turned around with a victorious grin, he found that the Red Viper was in quite a lot more trouble than he was.

Oberyn was utterly surrounded, twisting his body and dancing around their relentless stabs, all the while his spear just passed through them without any effect at all. Dumbfounded, Jaime looked down at Oathkeeper. The weird magical flare had already subsided, nothing of its glow remained on the dark blade.

 _It's the Valyrian steel!_ , Jaime realized. _They are vulnerable only against it!_

For some reason, he found his grin widening. He couldn't help but find Oberyn's desperate dance around the shadows very amusing. To him they were harmless, but the Red Viper was struggling full of exasperation.

"Come on, Kingslayer! What are you just standing there?", Oberyn yelled.

"Just enjoying the show, that is all!", Jaime snickered, his painfully throbbing head barely diminishing it.

"Oh for fuck's sake!"

For a split second Jaime played with the thought of just walking away and leaving him to his fate, it certainly would save him a lot of trouble later on. But with the Mountain still around, he had to admit that there was still need for the two to fight together. Grudgingly, the knight of the Kingsguard stepped into the circle of shadows and cut through it with almost boring ease. He watched Martell coming back to his feet and looking around.

"Great job, the Mountain made a run for it...", he grunted.

"There was little I could do to prevent that, even without his strange shadow allies jumping at us."

Jaime joined him in letting his gaze sweep across the alley. There was no one here but them inside the bounded field, no more moving shadows either.

"What now? He could be anywhere...", Oberyn said, looking like a starving wolf that was denied his prey.

"Well, like you said, we could continue where we left off the last time", he tried to overplay his bursting heart with a cocksure smile, but was somewhat doubting that Oberyn wouldn't see how much he had overexerted himself.

"Sure we could...", the Red Viper mirrored his smile, making his spear spin threateningly before lowering it again. "But I could kill you later anyway. For this day, let's call a truce until the Mountain is taken of."

Jaime nodded.

"Agreed. You have my word that I will not seek pointless fight with you", he declared.

 _I can't promise anything in regards to Emiya though._

The Red Viper gave a derisive sneer.

"The word from the Kingslayer! How assured am I supposed to feel with that?"

Jaime felt his features darkening, his smile turning to ice.

"Take it or leave it. Either way, we don't get anything from it when we let the Mountain roam freely."

Oberyn shrugged, grimacing slightly.

"I take it... for now... It was interesting though... fighting alongside you. I wonder what the kingdom would say about it. The lion and the viper back to back..."

"Oh, I am sure the singers would praise the gods for such an opportunity..."

Their words were friendly, but Jaime couldn't help but notice that they were still glaring at each other with vicious smiles and drawn weapons. At least until Oberyn laughed it away and turned his back towards him.

"Till next time, then. Kingslayer. And then we will have our rematch!"

With that the knight of the sun disappeared in a golden mist, leaving only the heavily breathing Jaime Lannister behind in the darkness. With all the tension of battle falling off his shoulder, Jaime now truly felt all of the exhaustion that was inflicted upon him... and more. His arms seemed stiff and cold, while the throbbing pain from his head now engulfed his entire body, making blood in all of his veins boil. That was no mere fatigue.

"God's be damned...", Jaime cursed, unable to stop himself from dropping to his knees. "And damn you, bastard..."

He had felt the first symptoms of it before, but he tried to shrug it off, deny it and power on, hoping that his supernatural spirit body would be able to somehow drive it out of his system. He didn't want to allow that one mistake at the docks to doom him. He knew that he needed to keep on fighting, but for now he felt only tired. Absurdly tired. He only wanted to close his eyes for a bit. At least until he managed to calm his racing heart down, at least until he regained his breath. But when he did, he dimly felt his body hitting the ground next... and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

 **Kariya**

He couldn't believe how warm her hand was. Burning even. Long after she had used her magic on him.

She claimed that he was making a choice, but Kariya was still barely able to see this as anything but a lie. A choice between life and death wasn't really a choice anymore once you decided that you want to live again. Therefore he took her hand. And the moment he did, his command spells flared up and one by one they disappeared... only to reappear on Caster's own hand.

Pulling back from her grip, he looked at his hand with uncertainty. The faint scars on its back reminded him that she just took everything that chained him to this Grail War. Anything but his regrets. He looked up at her. She seemed to do the same thing, inspecting the command spells on her hand with a keen eye. Kariya could not help but dread what was about to come next.

"So... now comes the part where I have outlived my usefulness to you, isn't it?", he leaned back against the brick wall again, waiting for the inevitable last betrayal to happen.

The process of her taking his right as a Master was surprisingly painless, but even then there was nothing he could do on his own against a powerful magic user like she was. She however interrupted her inspection of the red markings in order to look down at him with genuine confusion.

"Do not worry, Kariya Matou. The Lord of Light still has a purpose for you. Your fate now lies in his hands... and I will help you walk this path of atonement."

"What exactly is in it for you though?", he knew that he should know better than test his luck, but he couldn't shrug off this nagging suspicion that he was about to become a piece for just another Zouken, even if this one was certainly better to look at.

But the red woman only smiled like this, as if being reminded of a joke that was eluding him.

"Why then? Of course everything I wish is aid mankind in its struggle against the Great Other. Raise then! Come with me! The night is young and we have a lot to discuss. Our battle has just begun!"

Uneasily, he lifted himself onto his feet. They felt cold and stiff, but he was surprised to find that he had a feeling in both of them at all.

 _Fine then... let's play after her rules..._

And just like that, Kariya accompanied the radiating woman into the night.


End file.
